"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."

Billy - age 4

Part One: Carlisle and Esme: Brought to Life

Carlisle POV

Human life is sacred in my opinion. It's something to be protected and worshiped. It's a gift, one that was taken from me far too soon.

Moments are fleeing, and many are taken for granted. I for one have never seen a moment more precious than that first moment you realize you're in love. It was one I assumed I'd miss. I expected to spend my life alone after I was changed into someone I didn't recognize or believe in.

I was a vampire. I was not something that deserved compassion.

That was the thought I believed when I was first changed, and for many years after. I was raised to believe the thing I was changed into was demonic. It took a lot of time to see things differently. For a while I made all the wrong choices. I tried to destroy myself, and when that didn't work, I resorted to surrounding myself with those who were like me. I soon found that other vampires could be far worse than I was.

I don't know what it was that made me realize I was still capable of good, and a chance at happiness. Part of it came centuries later, when I encountered Edward. Before then love was only idea to me. After that day it became a feeling. For the first time in my life I had the closest thing to a son. I was fulfilled in that, yet still there was room for something. I was waiting for something, and I didn't even know it.

That's when it happened. When I didn't let myself wish or want it, it came. True love. In the form of a woman who needed love, possibly more than I ever could have.

Esme. A name so small, so simple, who knew it would be so significant. It would be the name that belonged to the person who made me what I was always supposed to be.

Of course I didn't know that the second I saw her. All I knew was that she was a grown up version of the girl I had once treated for breaking her leg as a child. Now she was dead.

Or at least that's what those at the hospital believed. She had jumped off a cliff after losing her only baby to illness. Her husband was not the most gentlemanly of men I knew. She'd walk around town with fresh bruises the nurses said. I paid them no mind. All I saw was a ghost of a woman, with a very faint heartbeat. One no human could detect.

When I had changed Edward, it had been at the request of his mother, and as a last resort.

No one was requesting for this young woman to be saved. Yet I was compelled to. I felt this tugging towards her. So I did something that for years after I deemed, unforgivable.

I turned her into a vampire.

Afterwards, I took her from everything she knew, and Edward and I left to a new life. I taught her how to control her urges, as I had with Edward, and after a few years when I thought she was ready, I told her she was welcome to leave if she wanted. Suddenly had felt some desperation in waiting for her answer.

And that was it. Her answer was that moment that I'd been telling myself I didn't need, and would never get. The moment to fall in love.

She looked at me like I was crazy and smiled. Her golden eyes were amused as she said, "Where else would I go?" Then she shoved me playfully and went back into the house.

Just like that, she became my world. I say everything differently. I saw my being changed as what was best, and felt like I was truly living. More so than when I had been alive.

That's what Esme did. She brought me back to life.

Esme POV

Every little girl dreams of falling in love. I was no different. I wanted a husband and a happy home filled with children. It was a simple dream. I waited my whole childhood for it to come true.

I even fell out of a tree when I was ten years old, because I was daydreaming of a prince coming to save me from some peril.

I laughed to think back to those days. I was so young and filled with silliness. Yet I was saved. In every way imaginable.

I was saved from an abusive marriage, by an unwanted pregnancy. My husband didn't want children yet, but he understood he couldn't hit me while I was carrying. I was lucky for that small sense he had.

Then when I lost my only son, I was consumed with grief that I couldn't handle. So I didn't handle it. I fled from it. Like a child from a nightmare. And when I woke up from that nightmare, I was the essence of one. I was a monster, whereas all I ever wanted to be was the princess.

Of course I was a grown woman, and being a princess was not a dream anymore. Instead those last few years of my human life, all I dreamed of was to be able to give my love to someone, and have it returned.

Apart from the brief time I had with my child, that was another dream that didn't come true. That is, until Carlisle came into my life. He completely changed it, and not just by changing me into a vampire. My vampire life wasn't necessarily what I had hoped for.

I couldn't have children. For a while that single thought shattered me. Half of my dream had been crossed out. Then I saw that dream in a different light.

No I would never give birth. I would never carry a child. But if Carlisle had simply passed me by, I would have never been able to do anything. I would have been a tragic story. Now I could be something extraordinary.

I started with helping Edward see I was someone he could trust and depend on, just as he had with Carlisle. Then, I saw something truly extraordinary.

I saw Carlisle.

I'd visit him while he was at work in the hospital, and seeing him help strangers, when it should be against our nature, restored my faith in people.

I'd watch him teach Edward different subjects from medicine to Italian, and saw a father.

I'd watch him watch me, and fell in love.

It was when he told me I was free to go out on my own, that I realized I loved him. Which may be insane to others, but others didn't see his face.

It was the first time I saw someone who wanted me somewhere. He wanted me to stay, yet in telling me I could go, he thought of my desires before his own. That was all I needed to know. He ended my human life, and yet taught me everything about what life was about.

That's what Carlisle did. He showed me how to live.

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate"

Nikka - age 6

Part Two: Rosalie and Emmett: Trust in the Future

Rosalie POV

I have many flaws. Most people don't spare me a second look to find them. Instead they just stare at the surface of me. Beauty only goes so far before it become obsolete though. I learned that. I learned my biggest flaw when I learned to love.

I tried not to think of my human life at all. Instead I thought I was moving forward by attempting to accept that I was a vampire. I didn't blame Carlisle for changing me. After a year or so I realized the kind of man he was, and he had no cruel bone in his body. It wasn't his fault that he chose wrong in changing me.

That's what I thought until I met Emmett. That the choice to keep me in the world was wrong.

I was like Esme. I wanted children. Esme settled with Edward and I, but I couldn't fathom that idea. I wanted my own. It hurt every day when the thought crossed my mind that I couldn't. But then there was Emmett.

It was a normal day for me. Hunting while we stayed in Tennessee. Then I scented something delicious. Human blood. I was drawn to it, but when I saw him struggling, all the animalistic instincts vanished.

The bear that was trying to kill him sensed a predator in me, and ran off, leaving the young man mangled. I knelt down, half expecting I would finish him off, but instead I gathered him up and started running with him in my arms. I didn't think, I just did. I didn't wonder if he was good or bad. I just reacted. My instinct was to save his life, rather than end it.

I took him to Carlisle, who changed him. I didn't know how to feel about my part in that. I tried to trust that my instincts were correct, and that whatever I saw in him, was something I thought deserved to be in this world, in some form. But I couldn't, because I didn't trust what I was feeling for him.

The last time I had opened myself up, it had ended terribly. I had no desire to relive anything like that. I decided to avoid him instead.

Which was impossible because he followed me everywhere the first few weeks of his new life.

He was the first of us to seem completely at ease with vampire life. He was always so happy and carefree. It was difficult to be around sometimes, when I was still wallowing in my vampire life.

But something changed when I was around him. I felt myself change. For the first time in years, everything wasn't planned out. I didn't know what I was doing, but I was comfortable with that, which was very unlike me.

There was something about the ease of being around him, that made the walls I built up, slip down. He wasn't just looking at my face all the time; he was listening, and seeing me for more than anyone else ever had. It made me see there was something to this life after all. It made me see that I could trust someone's feelings. I could trust my own. I could love.

That's what Emmett did. He gave me my ability to trust love again.

Emmett POV

I know many men in my position would be counting their lucky stars. The woman I fell in love with was stunning, and she looked at me with more love than anyone else ever had.

Yet, it wasn't just Rosalie's beauty that I saw. I saw someone who was haunted. And in my new life, knowing she saved me, made me want to save the part of her someone else had tried to destroy.

So I waited for her to open up. It was the first time in my life I ever felt needed in something. I'd been the youngest in my family before, and was just starting to become a true man. However in this life, I was learned what it was to be a real man. To have someone depend on you.

Rosalie didn't want to depend on me, but I saw she did. I was beginning to see her as the reason I was meant to be a vampire. I was meant to help her through her own change, and help her to see that good things were still possible. We were that good thing. Our family was that good thing.

Little by little, Rosalie would open up. She'd let her ever present guard down. Soon I saw she trusted me. I knew she did when she told me that I was the most important person in her life. It wasn't the usual declaration of love, but for Rosalie Hale, she showed me that she trusted her feelings for me. She trusted our love, and recognized that we had something she thought we both lost the second we were changed. A future.

That's what Rosalie did. She gave me her trust.

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."

Tommy - age 6

Part Three: Alice and Jasper: Learning to Feel

Jasper POV

I find it funny how we think we know ourselves so well. The truth is we don't. We make too many mistakes for that to be accurate. My mistake was thinking I knew love.

I loved a woman, and believed she loved me. I was wrong on both counts.

I didn't know what love was until Alice threw herself into my life. Before then I had been freezing myself out to any feelings, and ignoring the ones of others, which I felt everyday due to my power.

That day in Philadelphia, I found myself believing in love at first sight. Others in our family would say it took time to feel those feelings. For me it was something I learned in the first two minutes of meeting Alice. She was a force in those two minutes that stunned me. Someone so little, suddenly had my full attention, and had a tight hold on my life.

I was a goner. I trusted her suddenly, I loved her suddenly, and all those feelings were one's I knew I had never felt before her.

Hope.

That's what Alice did. She made me feel, everything.

Alice POV

I'm very different from everyone else in my family. Not just in the fact that I'm short, can see the future, and have a never ending sense of optimism. But I'm also different in the fact that my vampire life is all I remember.

In some ways it's a blessing. And in some ways it's been a struggle. I had to relearn everything. And most of what I relearned, was through visions.

Visions of him.

Jasper was the one to teach me how to fight. Jasper was the one who taught me I had something to teach. Jasper was the one who taught me how to love.

He was the first one I ever loved. I traveled across the country to meet him, knowing he was the one who would teach me about life.

In that first meeting I saw that raw emotion on his face as like recognized like, and we knew what we had found. That raw emotion was what calmed my nerves and sent me forward to place my hand in his. And in doing so, I felt love.

That's what Jasper did. He taught me to feel.

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.

So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."

Rebecca- age 8

Part Four: Edward and Bella: Daring for Happiness

Edward POV

Love is an emotion everyone should feel in their life. Happiness is another.

In my human life I felt both. I can also say I felt both in my vampire life. Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, and Jasper; were my family in every sense of the word. They were important and I loved them, as I was sure they loved me. And I was happy with my life.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't know I wasn't fully happy, and I felt something missing.

That's because for my one hundred and seven years of life, Bella was missing. She was my happiness, and she was my love.

But the day I met her, she was just a human who smelled irresistible, and I was a thirsty vampire.

That fact made me curse any God I could imagine. Because something in my very being, was pulling me towards Bella Swan. It took me a little while to realize it wasn't just her scent. It was her. Everything about her had me daring to want more. I wanted to know her, and I wanted her to know me.

So I took the risk, and I involved myself in her life. Some might see it as wrong. Some might see it as unhealthy. But I see those people as the ones who have not experienced what I have in knowing Bella. Love and happiness.

Two precious feelings that anyone would dare to do the unthinkable to feel.

That's what Bella did. She brought me happiness, in a lifetime of loneliness.

Bella POV

All my human life I was ordinary. I was muted. Just someone in the background of things, never feeling it was my time to participate.

When I met Edward Cullen, I found myself not hiding for the first time in my life. I allowed myself to wonder what it would be like if he were mine and I were his. Everything ordinary about me vanished.

Not because Edward noticed me, but because I became the woman I was meant to. I wasn't ready to before Edward. I didn't have the confidence and bravery he brought out in me.

After realizing the man you love is something not human, all other fears seem trivial. Instead my only fear was losing him. Because in finding him, I realized I could be happy. I didn't matter what I was risking. It mattered that I finally found someone who was worth the risks.

That's what Edward did for me. He made me dare for the magical.

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross."

Mark - age 6

Part Five: Jacob and Renesmee: Worth the wait

Jake POV

I am not a patient man. This is clear to any who meet me. I claim to be at times but there is one thing I have never been patient for.

To love someone.

When you're a werewolf who hears the thoughts of imprints every day, you start to wish for your own.

I made some mistakes along my search for mine. I realized the search was failing so miserably because mine hadn't been born yet, and I had been looking in all the wrong places.

Then once I saw her that was it. There was no more waiting for me. Because she was found.

In this day and age, everyone is in such a hurry. The idea of waiting any amount of years for the one you love seems like a death sentence. But for me, who has gone through life always waiting, I see it is truly worth it, as long as you know where the person is.

Once I saw Renesmee, I knew I'd never let her out of my sight. Because when you see something so extraordinary, all you want to do is be a part of it. So I was willing to wait to start the rest of my life with her.

Nessie did that for me. She was worth the wait.

Renesmee POV

They say people are connected. Love isn't limited to just you and your soul mate, its can stretch out on to many others, as long as you're willing to look for them, and let them in. That's what we did.

We saw the risks of doing so, and yet here we are. A family. One filled with more love than any other can experience. We are blessed in that. No matter how unconventional we are, we possess love. We are a family whose brought each other to life. We trust that our futures are entwined. We've learned to feel together. We've dared to be happy. We were worth the wait for each other.

That's what we did for one another. We know without hesitation, that if we are to die, we are to die together. It's not us who will necessarily last forever. It's the love we've had for each other.

"If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around." –Hugh Grant