“I love you!”
Along with “I’m sorry,” those are often the most difficult words to speak in our vocabulary.
As Valentine’s Day approaches this Saturday, we will see those words everyone craves to hear written in fancy colored type on greeting cards, in sugar icing atop cakes, on red, heart-shaped boxes of chocolate candy, and maybe on tiny florist’s cards with a bouquet of flowers.
Words are so cheap; putting them into action, so costly. In fleeting days of youth, when we first experienced that odd, sensation-filled sentiment, we trembled gathering up the courage to utter that trio of words.
Perhaps we sat in a classroom with that first love, adoring in silence, afraid to muster up the courage to verbalize our feeling. In retrospect, it was likely fear of rejection that kept our sentiments locked inside us.
Still, each of us can remember, though we may be happily married for decades, the name of that first person on whom we had a crush. It was like the season’s first snow, fresh, pure, exhilarating beyond anything we can ever hope to duplicate.
“I love you!”
When was the first time the words were ever spoken that you really recall?
Was it a mother or father who expressed the sentiment that you really did not comprehend at the time? Perhaps it was a grandparent who bid you farewell for the last time, and they expressed their love for you as a unique, special person, and you cast off the sentiment as trivial.
We express our love to the one we want to marry. To make marriage work, the expression cannot be one-sided, although it often is for a variety of reasons.
On a wedding day, so much happens that the real meaning of the words, “I love you!” are lost. So much surrounds the celebration of the declared love of two people for each other that love actually takes a back seat to the host of events, religious and secular.
So long as love lingers and grows deeper, the couple will be truly blessed uniting in a true marriage of two personalities. But soon, very soon, it seems, the trio of words become like wallpaper. They are chanted and not meant, sometimes for weeks, months, maybe even years.
They might accompany the close of day ritual with a goodnight kiss, “I love you,” stated with the same sentiment as, “Could I have a double cheeseburger and order of fries?”
Then, there are times when we come close to losing a person, that we quickly bring the words, “I love you” to our lips. The words may be spoken as an ambulance door is about to shut. The words may happen as an oxygen mask is slipped over the nose and mouth, and the gurney is wheeled toward an operating room.
A Pennsylvania Dutch saying painted on trivets and embroidered on frames always brings a chuckle to knick-knack shoppers: “Kissin’ Don’t Last, Cookin’ Do.”
Plainly spoken, the truth is, emotions may fade with the setting sun, but there are other things that tie the knot of love ever tighter. Cooking may certainly be one, but taken in the broader scope, it’s taking care of a family that helps cement the relationship.
Holding hands may seem like a thing of the past. It is a showing of affection that some find oddly out of touch with these modern times. All that aside, there is a couple that regularly attends my church who walk holding hands.
It is heart warming to see, to think that love lasts, that after all life has given and taken, those two folks still need and think enough of each other to place hand in hand.
Many of the problems in today’s society stem from the cold fact that people do not say “I love you!” nearly enough. Husbands and wives may cohabitate for years in a loving relationship, raise a family, have many grandchildren and possess all the trappings of success, yet never take the time to say “I love you!”
How many of us rationalize our relationships? “He (or she) must know I love him (her). I give him (her) my paycheck without fail. I remember his (or her) birthday. I can stand his (her) parents. We haven’t fought for years. What is love about, after all, if not that?”
Still, the heart yearns to hear the words “I love you!”
The combination of those three simple words gives meaning to our existence. They reaffirm that we have worth to the person we love the most.
Knowing all that, why is it so difficult to form the words that cost nothing and mean everything? “I love you!”
Go ahead, say “I love you!” today, tonight and tomorrow. Don’t wait until Valentine’s Day.
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