Say it now

“I already know that!” My middle girl shrugs her shoulders and when she lets them drop, she sighs as hard as she can. She finds me so exhausting. “I’ve known that my whole life.” And she sighs. This pretty much always follows my sentence: “Do you know how much I love you?”

Tell me something new, she seems to say. And I recognize it. Every time my dad used to say I was pretty/cute/lovely (dads are also incredibly predictable, after all), I would respond with: “You only say that because I’m your daughter.”

Now I am so grateful for that sturdy armor of love that my dad and mom have given me. Because we really love each other a lot, we don’t say it very often. They might say it to us, but we to them? When was the last time you told your mom why you loved her so much? Honestly?

Sunday is Mother's Day. I would say: seize your chance, tell her how much you love her and why. It may be old news and she probably already knows it for a hundred years, but it remains the nicest thing to hear.