Show and Tell

When I was very young, I used to write notes to my mom on all of my schoolwork. I scrawled "I love you Mom!" in my kindergarten print on the back of macaroni pictures and handwriting tests and construction paper state flags. I don't remember why I started doing this. It was just something I did. I also don't remember when or why I stopped. I probably felt too cool to write it on, say, my 4th grade California salt map, and it would have been a little strange to write "I love you Mom!" on the back of my 12th-grade essay on existentialism in Hamlet, though maybe it would not have been quite as strange to write it on the copy of my master's thesis I gave to my parents. I think they made the dedication.

I also used to make sure that I said "I love you" to my parents every single night before I went to bed. This habit lasted longer - at least all the way through high school. I think as a teenager I was sufficiently scared by the stories you hear of people who left the house angry or forgot to tell a loved one "I love you," and then said loved one was killed in a horrible car accident and the writer of the morality tale was stricken by guilt for the rest of his or her life.

I think at some point along the way, though, I decided that rote statements of "I love you" did not mean as much, and that saying "I love you" should be something special in order for it to be meaningful. If I always express my appreciation to someone, or if I always say "I love you" every time I say goodbye or goodnight or see-you-in-an-hour-or-so to someone, how do they know I am sincere? Repetition does not necessarily reflect sincerity. If I really love someone, they should just know that I love them by virtue of the relationship we have. This didn't mean I stopped telling my parents "I love you" - I tell them every week, at least. But it did make me think a little more about what it means to sincerely love someone.

But today is Mother's Day and I was thinking about how to say I love you sincerely, and about those notes I used to leave for my mom on the back of my school projects. It occurred to me that, although writing those notes was just a habit for me at the time, they were nevertheless completely sincere expressions of my 5- or 6-year old self's love for her mother. And when I talk to my parents on the phone and we end the conversation with an exchange of I love you's, there is never any question in my mind that they are meant sincerely on both ends. That is in part because I do already know that we love each other by virtue of the relationship we have had for 30 years now. But while there is something meaningful about not having to say something, there is also something very meaningful about saying it anyway.

Elder Bednar gave a talk in general conference last year in which he encouraged us to actually express our love: "We can begin to become more diligent and concerned at home by telling the people we love that we love them. Such expressions do not need to be flowery or lengthy. We simply should sincerely and frequently express love." He also talked about showing love, but it struck me at the time how important it is to actually tell people what they mean to us. Showing and telling are both important.

There are a lot of people who mean something to me, but since it's Mother's Day, my mom gets the special treatment in this blog entry. I love my mother. She has been an example to me in her testimony, her service to other people, her love of learning, and her relationship with my father and with her children. I have never had any reason to question her love for me and her willingness to do anything for me and my growth and happiness. I am grateful every single day for the love and security she has given me all my life. Mom, I love you. I hope I don't need to say it for you to know, but I'm saying it anyway :). Happy Mother's Day!