Saying, "I Love You."

I've been thinking quite a bit since Storm's suicide about the way people respond to loss and pain and hardship. I have conversations with lots of people on the Internet about their losses and everyone responds differently.  There are some who seem to cling to their pain and guilt and loss, unable to move forward in their lives. Then there are those who feel the loss, who will allow the pain to overwhelm them for a while, but then they begin seeking for a way out and the way to healing.

I think I'm one of the latter. I may not have always been. I admit that I did not experience great loss into my adult years, though that doesn't mean that I had not felt pain. I've been pondering why it is that one person will cling to the pain and the other will cling to the healing.

When I was a young girl I spent a great deal of time at camp each summer. I was fortunate to be part of the family at my local Salvation Army church and they provided my home family the means for me to go. My mother was never a healthy woman. For most of her life she smoked like a chimney and then blamed her ill health on everything but the smoking. She would have great coughing fits that wracked her body. Sometimes I would wake up at night to hear hacking and coughing and I would worry that my mother was dying.

When I was ten years old this was on my heart when I went to summer camp. My grandfather, her father, had died the previous year and I was afraid that I was going to lose my mother. I'm not sure what set it off, but one day after morning devotions I started crying. The counselor, really no more than a teenager, pulled me aside and asked what was wrong. I spilled the whole thing. This young lady whose name I cannot even remember told me one of the wisest things I've ever heard, and some of the best advice in my life.

She told me there was nothing I could do about my mother smoking or my mother's health. She told me that all I could do was tell her that I loved her every single day. I told her that my family wasn't the kind of family that said I love you very often. She told me it didn't matter. She told me to tell her anyway because she would like hearing it even if she didn't say it back.  She told me it wasn't about me hearing she loved me back, but her knowing that I loved her, in case she died tomorrow.

I went home and did exactly that. I would hug my mother and tell her I loved her. At first she didn't seem to know what to do about it, but eventually she began saying it back. I started doing the same to my father with a less obvious result and with less frequency.

Fast forward 40 years or so.  I began having a conversation with a friend online. This friend told me how she felt like her parents blamed her for her grief, and how she was sure that they didn't love her. She told me that her father was retired military and that they were not good at expressing their feelings. She was sure he would never say that he loved her, so she was sure that he didn't.

Her assumption was that my father was demonstrative and open with his feelings. She did not know me well enough to know that my father is also retired military, and not so good at expressing his feelings. She didn't know that my family of six children and two parents were not very good at expressing their feelings. From her perspective,  everyone's family is better than hers and more loving.

The difference between the two of us is that I don't let it stop me. I don't let his lack of response stop me from telling him that I love him. I don't think he doesn't love me or that he's not proud of me because he doesn't say it out loud. In fact, I can clearly remember two times in my life when my father told me out loud that he loved me. That still doesn't stop me from telling him. Before I leave him I kiss him and/or hug him and tell him that I love him.

So why does one person assume they're loved, and the next one assumes indifference?

I think it's a choice. I think I choose to be loved. I think I choose to believe the best in others, especially those I love. I think I choose to move forward even when the ghosts of the past haunt me. I chose to tell my mother that I loved her even though I knew she wouldn't return the expression, though she eventually did. I know now that my dad is simply going to pat me on the back and nod when I tell him that I love him. I choose not let that stop me, and I am certain that he loves me back.

I also choose not to live in grief.  I choose not to wallow in it, I choose not to feel guilty for things that are not mine to own, and I choose to find the light in life every day. I choose to love my family for who they are, and not who I think they should be.

My mother lived many more years and I told her I loved her as often as I could fit it in. She died in 2012. There are many things that I wish I had said to my mother. There are almost as many things that I wish I had never said. The one thing I'm certain of is that my mother knew that I loved her, and I have no regrets for a single time that I said so.