Saying “I love you”

I like to believe that everyone has felt love at least once in their lifetimes. The love of a child, a husband or wife, a mother, a father, a friend, a lover.

I spoke to my grandmother not long ago, I told her I loved her and she almost broke down in tears, not because what I said was unexpected, but because even with all her might she could not say it back. She said: “I have never spoken these words to my husband, my children or grandchildren and I don’t think I ever will.” , and you know what? I have never felt such heartbreak. For somebody to utter those words, I cannot begin to imagine the pain and suffering that hides behind them.

My grandmother was born during strange times, not long after WWII. A time when communism came to power, a time that took many lives and scarred double that. She got married in the early ’70s, had two children and lived her life, not a good one if you ask her, but she lived through it all, the rise and fall of communism, abuse, health issues, miscarriages, unhappiness, loneliness, lack of money and worst of all, lack of a voice or will of her own. She’s a very religious person, though she considers herself to be the biggest sinner there is for all she has done. When she tells me stories, she tries to make them funny. Scattered jokes here and there, most of them belonging to the dark humor genre, all meant to hide her misery. I sit here and wonder, would I have been able to survive it all like she did?

I haven’t lived the most perfect, beautiful life, but compared to my grandmother’s, I’d think I ended up quite lucky. I have a choice over my future, my body, my money and everything in between and I think I’m taking that for granted sometimes just like most of us do in fact.

“I love you.” So easy to type it down, but what do these words really mean? I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love, I’m scared I never will, but I love so much and so many I think of myself as a goddess of love ready to give it my all to those around me. I love my family and my friends and people I’ve never even met before in my life. I love the blue sky and the clouds and the storm that rages on above us. I love the birds and the bees and the little flowers that grow through cracks in the pavement. I love my life and what it means so much it hurts. I love the improbability of my exitance and the dying star that spread out its atoms around the Universe to create me. Me who had a chance in 400 trillion to be born. Me who was afraid of the world. Me who now has a voice louder than before.

“I love you.” I wonder how many people crave to hear these words. I wonder how many wish to never do so ever again. “I love you.” Are they really only empty words? I like to believe that love does not stand in three simple words, I like to believe that “I love you” exists in “Get home safe”, “Make sure you eat today”, “I’m here for you”, “I believe in you” and all the other messages we send to those close to us or even to strangers. Being kind to someone you don’t know isn’t hard, it’s not a crime either, it’s the greatest thing you could ever do.

Saying “I love you” does not just mean saying it out loud. It’s actions and their consequences, it’s poetry you write on old pieces of paper and leave behind in books, it’s songs you compose just for the sake of it, it’s smiling at strangers, paying for somebody else’s coffee at Costa, it’s making food for two and sharing it, it’s accepting who you are and accepting others for the same reason too.

So yeah, saying “I love you” can be tricky, but you don’t need to hear those words to feel the actual love. My grandmother could not tell me she loved me, yet she wished me good health and told me to enjoy every single little thing, even the falling leaves or the cold breeze in the morning and that kind of “I love you” is louder than any other.