If a man lets all of my dogs sleep in the bed with us then that is the most romantic thing. You must love my dogs in order to love me. A man who is nice to my animals and doesn't shoo them away - well that's the height of romance.
I realized that while I would never be my mother nor have her life the lesson she had left me was that it was possible to love and care for a man and still have at your core a strength so great that you never even needed to put it on display.