I love you...Mom

My thoughtful nephew wrote this to share with his mom on mothers day....It truly blessed her and if you're a mom...it will you too!

Darby Jan Cooke...Christopher's mom and my precious sister. 

I love you
Its a simple phrase. Over used, cliche even in the "modern era", but I like it! Its not overly complicated, doesn't carry a lot of baggage with it. 
It's just simple. I - subject. Love - action verb. You - object.

I love you

When you say it out loud it dominates the air. It just hangs there requiring nothing, standing all on its own. No other possible meaning.

On the page, though, it can be hard to communicate. That's why I don't like to put a period after it. A period ends something. Signals finality. Without the period it just floats

I love you

Without the period it hangs on the page, bleeds over into the next sentence, the next paragraph, it bleeds all over the paper. I like that. It doesn't end, it's not final. It just continues on without remorse, without apology, without bars. Its not just an action, it's an eternal truth.

I love you

Actions, they like to say, speak louder than words. But I don't know about that. Words are more powerful than we give them credit. I can act out "I love you" all I want. I can clean dishes, buy flowers, spend money, time, effort to communicate that simple phrase. But all those actions are useless without those "simple" words, the statement, the declaration.

I love you

People argue with me, but they are wrong and this is how I know. I can be sad, hurt and lonely. I can be selfish, I can be mean, harsh, brutally unfair. I can take a present 'gift' scrimped and saved for, a present a gift, gone without food, gone without simple clothing to obtain; I can whine, complain and accuse because it is not enough. I can hate what I've done, what I do, what I've become. But then she says,

I love you...

She could have held me. She could have cried. She could have tried to do more. But none of that would have captured me as the words. Those simple, over used words. But these words are strong. They don't ring softly, their echoes shake the foundations of the world. They hang in the air, bleed over into everything I see, everything I hear, everything I think. And all of it just fades.

My hurts, my faults, my imperfections, until there is just me. Me and her. The woman who taught me to speak, to write, to love. She tucks me in close and whispers it again as I stand frozen.

She battles my fears in her arms, stitches up my wounds just as she did when I was young, with these simple words that I whisper back.

I love you too


by: CJCooke...my nephew!

a mom and her boy!...

Christopher