It was a lovely Sunday morning in December. It was early and the house was quiet. I was enjoying the solitude, coffee, and a book when I got a text message from my friend, Debbie. That was odd. Debbie doesn’t text unless there is a good reason. And there usually isn’t a good reason on a Sunday morning. I checked the message and read that Debbie’s friend, Dianne, had died unexpectedly. She gave a few details, asked for prayer for Dianne’s family, and ended the message by saying that the last thing Dianne had said to her on the previous Friday was, I love you.
The news of Dianne’s death was shocking. I didn’t know her well, I’d met her a couple of times but hadn’t had the opportunity to really become friends with her yet. She was ten days older than I and Debbie said when she saw her on Friday, Dianne was vibrant, healthy, and happy. What stayed with me most, though, wasn’t that she was my age. Or that she had been seemingly healthy only moments before her death. What stayed with me most was that the last words Debbie heard her say were, I love you.
Later, Debbie told me that she and Dianne had said goodbye, Dianne had turned around, walked a few steps, and then stopped, turned back around and told Debbie she loved her. Her intentionality was clear.
I learned the value of hearing the words, I love you, spoken intentionally, early in life. Not because I heard it a lot. I didn’t. But, in spite of the circumstances of my father’s death, the last words he said to me were, I love you. At the time I thought he was just being weird. Later, I understood that he knew those were the last words I would hear him say and while there were a lot of hurdles to making any sense of his suicide, at my core, I'd know he loved me. As an adult, I adopted the practice of saying, I love you, to my family whenever I was leaving them, in case those were the last words they would hear me say.
Debbie used to joke that if she were picking me up to go somewhere we’d have to plan an extra five-minutes for me to hug everyone and say, I love you. But later she told me she adopted the same practice for the same reason.
In spite of my commitment to using the words, I love you, with my family, I taught my kids to be sparing with their use when it came to romantic relationships. As sweet and special as it can be to hear, I love you, I was always concerned that 14-year olds who started ‘going out’ and broke up three days later really didn’t understand romantic love all that well. Throwing the words around seemed to cheapen them. I taught them to say it only when they knew they meant it.
And I’ve had trouble understanding the recent trend toward saying, “I love you more!” When I first heard it, I thought it had a certain sweetness to it but then it started to trouble me. As if love were now a competition to see who could love the most. I’ve opted to stay out of the love competition and simply love to the best of my ability. Maybe I love some people more than others. Maybe some people love me more than I love them back. Since I’m not sure you can quantify love, I’ve decided not to over think it.
Love just is.
It seems no matter how many times we hear the message to love others and to value our days because we don’t know how many we will have, we can never hear the message too many times. Life with all its consuming aspects has a way of pushing that message to the margins and then, just as I was on that quiet Sunday morning, we are reminded of how fragile life is. And how important the words, I love you, are.
While I tell my family I love them frequently, Dianne’s deliberate action on the Friday before her death has reminded me of how important it is to tell my friends I love them also. What would my life be without so many of my dear friends? Void of such richness and diversity. Void of so much laughter and joy. My friends challenge me to be better, stronger, and deeper. I’d be lost without them. My life would lack texture without the friends I love so dearly.
I'm reminded to ensure that they know how much I love them by simply saying those words.
I love you.
Thank you, Dianne.
No comments:
Post a Comment