“I love you, too.”
She whispered it back to me last night, when she’d woken up at 3 a.m. because of a stomachache. After a drink of water and a bleary-eyed cuddle, she was tucked snugly back into bed.
I tossed and turned, unable to go back to sleep. I was in my own bed, but could still feel the light touch of her little hands as she’d said those words lingering on my face. I felt the same energy in that touch when she was a newborn.
Our children tell us they love us well before they can actually say those words.
“I love you” is that cry when they experience their very first separation from you as oxygen floods their lungs for the first time.
“I love you” is their protest when they won’t let you put them back down in that cot, because your closeness, your heartbeat, and the sound of your voice is all they need.
“I love you” is that sweet, gummy smile.
“I love you” is when they imitate everything you do, down to your facial expressions, or the things you say (or shouldn’t have said).
“I love you” is when they cling to you for what feels like months on end, when you stepping out of the room devastates them beyond belief.
“I love you” is the meltdown they have when they’re kicking, and screaming, and totally unreasonable, and showing you every single shade of emotion they’re feeling, hard as it may be for you to maintain your composure, stand by and let them feel it, because they’d hesitate to unleash it all in front of someone whose love they doubted.
Sometimes their “I love you” comes in the form of your most difficult parenting moments, the moments that test you and shake you to your very core.
Is that why they call it unconditional? Because we can see each other at our worst ––the child throwing a tantrum of unparalleled proportions, or the parent that has completely snapped–– and still love with everything we’ve got.
They’ve been saying “I love you” right from the very start.
Credit: The Tuna Chronicles • by Rasha Rushdy
