The images on TV show Anna Nicole after she gave birth to her second child, Daniellyn. A few days later, her 20-year old son dies - in the same hospital where the baby was born. “She’s doing her best as a mother coping with grief and caring for Daniellyn," one commentator said, “in the only way she knows how, with the hand that she’s dealt with."

Flipping through yesterday’s papers, I read up on Space Shuttle pilot Lisa Nowak and how she struggled through a dual career as astronaut and mother. Nowak was arrested on charges of attacking a woman in Florida. “Life after a mission could have been very hard for Captain Nowak,” said a former NASA physician. “You’re the rock star, you’re at the high of your high, you have this great, wonderful, super-elevated moment in space. You come back and you’re cleaning up your kids’ mess and cooking.

What’s more, the astronaut returns to a husband who has been doing solo parenting duty and expects to get a break, only to hear, ‘Hey, this is your problem now.’ It could be wrenching. Some of those things can just conspire to nail you." Captain Nowak has twin 5-year-old girls and a teenage son. She’s a picture of bliss holding one of the daughters during their baptism.

And did you read the one about two ancient skeletons found locked in an embrace? “They died young and, by the looks of it, love,” according to a newspaper account. Archaeologists discovered the prehistoric bones near the city where Shakespeare set the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet.

Based on the unusual and touching pose, one expert determined that “it was born of a deep sentiment. From thousands of years ago we feel the strength of this love. Yes, we must call it love."

This last story has the happiest ending of all. After 25  years, a 76-year-old Thai mother, Jaeyaena Beuraheng, is reunited with her seven children who were told their mother died in an accident. She had apparently caught the wrong bus home after a shopping trip across the border to Malaysia . Unable to speak the local dialect, she couldn’t tell anybody that she was lost and wanted to return home. She ended up as a beggar, living in a homeless shelter until one day some visitors heard her sing in a dialect that they recognized. “She sang her same old song, one that nobody could understand," said one of the shelter’s staff who asked the visitors to talk to the woman and find out if she had relatives. Jaeyaena recounted her own story, of how she had gotten lost in northern Thailand and how she missed her seven children. The news of her discovery shocked her family who immediately brought her home to their village. She remembered all her children’s names and her grandchildren were still hugging and kissing her two days after her return.

It’s been more than two hours already and Desiree picked up baby Maya from her doting grandfather. “You can wake her up now, Dad,” she tells me. “It’s time for her milk.”

Ah, the things we do for love. Happy Valentines Day.

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