I think I was about 40 y.o. the first time my mother said "I love you" at the end of one of our long-distance phone calls. The last time before that I was probably 2 years old, I don't remember it.
I nearly dropped the phone, but got used to it and even managed to eke it out myself eventually. My father never got the hang of it. I never heard those words from him before he passed at age 90 even when I finally got comfortable saying it regularly to him over the last 7 yrs of his life (after Mom died leaving him somewhat helpless after she "ran the show" for their 56 years of marriage and child-raising (5 kids)).
They were a stable sober couple, and did their best to be there for each other and the 5 of us with our various dramas and traumas (2 sons-in-law lost to alcoholism by age 30, one ending with suicide, the other, a real salesman go-getter type, just dropped out of sight one day leaving his pregnant wife and 4-year-old daughter in the lurch. He never saw, or tried to see, his son, ever, or his daughter or wife ever again. Called said son once when son was maybe 35 years old. Got a well-deserved cold shoulder. Died suddenly around age 65 while running a bar in Central America, we eventually heard.
My 'rents were always there for us, but that demonstrative gene was definitely recessive in them.
Glad to say my parents' 5 kids, now age 62 to 73, took Mom's late-breaking lead and we do now say those 3 little words to each other regularly, though we had not done so growing up.
Hmm, I didn't plan on this turning into a part Happy Valentine's Day post and part stroll down dark-memory lane but I s'pose that's how it turned out. Well, life has bits of both, sort of hodge-podged in there together, doesn't it.
"We try to do the best with what we've got." Sometimes I think that line sounds like one of resignation to secondratedness, but really, it' can be looked at as a highest aspirational goal. Don't you think?
Could someone maybe repost that how-to-post-a-photo-here post? Thanks. I have a cute (I hope) Valentine's pic to post but I spent a half hour this morning trying to re-find the how-to post and eventually had to give it up and get to workywork.
Now more than 1/2 way to New York City on 5-hour bus ride, nestled next to my little valentine. Ooh, pulling off highway, must be time for driver's rest stop.
Ta,
jr