They spent several minutes in the church.  It wasn’t very crowded as Bea had chosen a weekday to have their meeting.  The ceiling was so ornate.  Even the mosaic floor was amazing to look at.  They went to the left side of the church and looked at the gruesome sight of the head of St. Valentine.  He had been beaten and beheaded for helping people come together in love.

“Ugh!  This is not what I want to write about,” said Bea.

“What do you want to write about,” asked Purity.

“I want love to win – even if it has to take a long time.  I want to know what love and what it isn’t.  I don’t want to get fooled by it,” said Bea.

“Good luck with that,” said Purity.

“If you can do that, you’ll have bested some of the greatest writers of all time: Shakespeare, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning – they all tried to explain the nature of love.  The truth is, we all fall on our face with love at some point.  We all make mistakes.  Love makes you act crazy.  I haven’t figured it out either, but I do know it isn’t settling for less than you deserve: someone who actively tries to love you.  ACTION being the key word.  And if they keep apologizing and their ACTIONS don’t change – you gotta get away! If they constantly leave you hanging, they don’t really love you.

They walked out of the church.  They were in the Forum and it was filled with vendors of every type.

“Can we have some ice cream?” asked Bea.

“Gelato, sure you can,” replied Prudy.

They ambled up to a gelato vendor and looked at the flavors.  Purity decided on Cookies and Cream.  Bea wanted Mixed Berries and Prudence chose coffee flavored. They ate and walked around the piazza (plaza).

Since Prudence had bought Fast Track tickets into the Forum and the Colosseum, they decided to hit the Colosseum before it got too dark.

The Colosseum was a spectacle.  Even though it was in ruins, Purity and Bea saw pictures created by artists that showed them how big it had been “back in the day.” Purity, Prudence and Bea walked all around the ancient stadium.  They learned that gladiators and animals would fight until the ground was too soaked in blood to continue.

“Wow!  This place was brutal! All those people died just so the Romans could be entertained,” said Purity.

As they walked out of the colosseum, Bea saw something which made her stop and read:

She had not thought of herself as a warrior, but thinking back over the last few years, she realized – she was.  And even warriors are hurt sometimes.  But they get up and they keep going!