Say I Love You

Once when I was at my father’s parents house, I looked at my daughter and was so enamored with her that I grabbed her and smothered her with kisses and said “I love you so much.”  My grandmother told me that she was so happy to hear me say that to my daughter.  “Not all kids get to hear that, you know?”  I didn’t know.  How do parents resist that overwhelming urge smother their babies with love and adoration?  And in that moment, I realized how differently my parents were raised.  My father was raised by an adoring mother who knew the value of her words, and my mother was raised by a well intentioned, stern italian father who spoke more to criticize than to praise or adore.  And it showed.  

My mother struggled with words like “proud” and “love”.  Make no mistake, she mothered with pride and more love than I sometimes deserved, but saying those words out loud was usually more than she could muster.  It was as if no one taught them to her.  But she proved her undying love so certainly that it never even occurred to me to be miss the words.  On the contrary, my father won’t let me off the phone without an “i love you” exchange, and a few moments of gushing praise about how proud he is of the mother I am.  Yet I have only one vivid memory of my mother uttering such words.  It’s vivid because it was so rare, not because she was on her death bed.  

The last coherent thing my mother said to me was “I’m proud of the mother that you are to my grandchildren”.  It wasn’t exactly on her death bed, but she was in bed as she had just lost the use of her legs to a brain tumor and I’m sure she knew that the rest of her body probably wasn’t far behind.  She asked me to sit down and then said those very words, with a strength that, ironically enough, she didn’t have before her illness.   Maybe she knew her brain wasn’t going to let her remember who she loves, or what makes her so happy and proud.  Maybe her fading memory let her forget that she spent her lifetime struggling with the inner strength and self assurance to express her deepest thoughts without fear of shaming.   Whatever the reason, she said those words with a confidence and sincerity that only a terminal brain tumor could finally grow.   And those will forever be some of the most important words I have ever heard.  

It should be so easy to express our joys.  Yet we often spit out the more hurtful and scarring words without any thought or hesitation, and then choke on the words that we’d all love to hear.  Why do we hesitate to say the most beautiful things, the words that pull us closer, right by the heart strings?  If my parents are any indication, it is all about the parenting (isn’t everything?).  We have the power and responsibility to teach our children to love unabashedly.  We have to give them the confidence to express themselves without the irrational fear that love hurts.  We can’t burden them with a weakeness that has them grasping at a strength which can only be found on a deathbed.   You love them.  Tell them.  Tell them often.  Tell them to ensure that they will tell your grandbabies.  

The other day, my  5 year old caught me starting at him and said, “I know, I know, you love me.”  Yes, I say it so much it’s almost annoying, and I mean it, wholeheartedly, every single time.  

Love out loud.  It’s what the world needs now.