When I was 19, my car was demolished when I made a legal left in L.A. and a vehicle sped through the crimson. Since then, I have a fear of lefts. I will make all the rights I can to avoid a left.
The parking lot of the studio we attended for dance for a decade was a difficult left turn. Every left I made into that lot was an “I love you” to my kids. I think about this a lot. Small gestures, invisible gestures, things nobody else notices or sees can mean “I love you.”
Years ago, my family was with another family at a restaurant, and I spilled milk all over the table. My mom mopped me up, and I still remember the other mother saying, “Roberta, I would have gone for the table or the food; you went for the face.”
We say “I love you” all day long. All in our special ways.
When I worked in an office with two backroom cats, I would clean the cat box even though it wasn’t my job. I would slip chocolate into one coworker’s purse. I would buy flowers for a manager. Before Scott’s strokes, I would make sure his sock drawer and underwear drawer were filled. I am not a domesticated housecat/housewife by any means. But I did my best. Each time he opened that drawer to matched socks was an “I love you.”
Once, when I was 12, my dad drove me and a friend to the Esprit outlet in San Francisco, even though he doesn’t understand shopping. Recently, when I’d run out of butter, he slipped into my house late at night and left me a quarter stick so I’d have it for eggs in the morning.
A good friend brings us “I love you” food.
A neighbor drops off “I love you” bird books.
I know how to see the “I love yous” now.
I care for Scott round the clock. Each and every action I do as a caregiver is an “I love you.” The powers that be would have you believe that “I love yous” are only flowers and candy and a mass-produced heart. And sometimes they are. But more often than not, they are a drawer of socks. A quarter stick of butter. A left turn (or a lot of left turns).