without loving it less

In The Strange Triumph of The Little Prince, an 04/14/14 article for The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik writes about the relationship between the child & his beloved rose - -  "To be responsible for his rose, the Prince learns, is to see it as it really is, in all its fragility & vanity—indeed, in all its utter commonness!—without loving it less for being so fragile."

Smacked me between the eyes, set me back on my heels.  He expressed my always & forever feelings about my family.  If you can understand that sentence, you can understand everything about my relationship with my mother & siblings.  Not theirs with me, but mine with them.