Love vs. Trust

Before today's subject a little bit of a vent. Know how I recently said that this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I had no plans? Well, that is out the window. Sis and her husband got called to Utah to help my niece out. They are leaving tomorrow. So I am the lead caregiver this weekend. Today is fixing lunch for Mom and going out for dinner with the group. I can hear Frank Sinatra singing That's Life in the background.

In Wednesday's USA Today Sports column "Keeping Score" poet George Mac Donald was quoted as saying "to be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved."

Do you agree? Because of being in a business for over thirty years that required clients trusting me with their financial and sometimes personal lives I have been trusted by many. I was touched by each one of my clients that believed in me. That believed whatever they told me stayed with me. It was an extraordinary compliment to be trusted.

Loved? Maybe once or twice in my life I have been loved. Now? I know my Mom and sister love me unconditionally but it would be nice to be loved by a woman that didn't have to.

What feels better to you being trusted or being loved? What is more important to you? Don't they both go hand in hand? How can you love someone you don't trust? Me? I wouldn't even mind being loved by a woman like the one in today's Who Am I:

I was born in Canada in 1859 and died in prison in Ohio in 1907. My first arrest was in 1881 but I was released due to insanity. I married in 1882 but my husband left me eleven days later when he found out I wasn't pure. After that I changed my name and became a fortune teller. Because the name I chose didn't fit the occupation I became Madam Lydia. In 1889 I was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. I served four years before being paroled by then Governor William McKinley. I changed my name again and then opened a brothel. I had one son while working the house. I married a well respected physician in either 1886 or 1897. We met at the brothel but he wasn't aware of my shady criminal past. I assured him that I she was merely an etiquette instructor for the girls. I changed my name again. I moved into my husband's house on "Millionaire's Row" and tried in vain to become part of the inner socialite circle. In 1897 I set up a scam after meeting my husband banker friend, Dillon. I told Dillon that I was the illegitimate daughter of the wealthiest bachelor in America. The bachelor who had a hall named after him and the hall is still famous today as it sits in the City of New York. To prove it my claim, Dillon and I took a carriage ride to the bachelor's Fifth Avenue mansion. While Dillon waited I went to the door and was admitted in, where I stayed for about 30 minutes. Upon returning to the carriage, I waved to a well-dressed man in the front window, then tripped while entering the carriage, surreptitiously dropping a piece of paper. Dillon retrieved the paper and noticed it was a promissory note for $2 million signed the bachelor, I said was the man waving from the window. Dillon wanted details. I supplied them after swearing Dillon to secrecy. I said that the bachelor, out of shame for her illegitimacy, had given me promissory notes, worth $7 million, but with my own shame I had not drawn on them. I also told Dillon I would inherit $400 million when the bachelor died. Shame on me I lied. In truth, the man in the window was the butler, whom I had occupied by purporting to need credentials on a maid I intended to hire. Dillon set up a safe-deposit box for my promissory notes and then shared my ‘secret’ with almost every lender in the state. Eager bankers began offering me loans of up to $1 million, with interest rates of 25 percent, believing millions were available to be gleaned. Instead of demanding repayment, they let the loans compound annually, figuring the bachelor would vouch for any debts and they would get their financial rewards after probate. I became known as the “Queen of Ohio.” I bought diamond necklaces, clothes to fill 30 closets, and a gold organ for my living room. I entertained lavishly – even frittering $100,000 on a dinner party. For several years I lived the high life, amassing loan debts totaling $2-20 million. An Ashtabula newspaper account of my death stated: "The extent of these transactions will never be fully known, but they ran up into the millions. They involved men of high standing in the financial world and caused heavy losses to many bankers." Banks were not the only ones to loan me money; millionaires did, too. And damn one of them was my downfall. He loaned me $190,800 and had the gall to request repayment. I was indignant. I explained that all of my securities (worth $10 million) were in a bank. He went to the police and brought suit against me on November 2, 1904. Upon inspection, my promissory notes were found to be obvious forgeries. I was arrested on December 7, 1904 lying in bed with my money belt containing $100,000. I stood trial in Cleveland and even the bachelor attended. On March 10, 1905, I was convicted on seven counts of conspiracy against the government and conspiracy to wreck a bank. I was sentenced to 10 to 14 years and fined $70,000. I brought trunks of finery to prison; animal skin rugs and clothes, which the warden let me keep. On January 1 or 12, 1906, I began my prison term and died two years later on my birthday. I wrote several letters to my son Emil, one of which asked him to get money from my hiding place to buy a tombstone for the family plot in Ontario. Who Am I?