title explained

Onward and upward! something that you say in order to encourage someone to forget an unpleasant experience or failure and to think about the future instead and move forward.

My e-mail: jjmiller6213@comcast.net

Monday, April 28, 2014

Pondering

Today's high temperature was:  52 degrees
Cloudy all day
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All day and tonight, I am worried and praying for my friends in the tornadoes paths.

Charlotte and Margie, in Arkansas and Ernestine in Tennessee.  Also Vickie in Oklahoma.  Hope you and your family/friends were spared from the vicious storms!!! 
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Thanks for the advice concerning Pearl.  I still don't quite know what to do when she asks me a question about something she doesn't remember and I give her the answer and then she argues with me.  Perhaps I could say, "What do you think?"  or "Could it be.....?"  I believe she knows that something is wrong with her mind and it frightens her.  So if I try to help by filling in the blanks--that just reinforces her problem and makes her more upset.  So--I will be much more careful.  As I've said, I have not had this experience with anyone, so...I am learning.
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I have spent a good part of this gloomy outside, staying inside day, thinking back and pondering.  Back to the mid-50's.  I was married in 1957 and divorced in 1984.

I'll bet over those 27 years, my husband and I said "I love you" to each other--perhaps a dozen times.  I guess, people nowadays would find that strange.  The phrase is bandied about without much thought.

We were much the same as our parents had been.   I don't ever remember hearing my Dad and Mother say THOSE words to each other.  It was a deeply private thing.  I knew my Dad loved my mother--it was very apparent when she was dying and he sat by her bed for 36 hours and never moved.  His head placed near her pillow--they stared into each other's eyes and whispered words back and forth to each other.  That scene was so filled with love that it almost embarrassed me to watch.  I felt very much the intruder and spent most of the time sitting in the Solarium.

I can remember distinctly the first time I heard it.  Gary was a Senior and I was a Junior--we had been going together for over a year.  We were sitting in the driveway, out in his car.  We weren't talking, we were just hugging and he put his mouth hear my hair and said, "I love you, Judy."  I didn't say it back to him, I remember now.  That would come later.  Although I did love him, had loved him, but, girls just didn't say it first.  My heart jumped into my throat!  I felt so warm and happy.

In that "I love you" was contained a lot more than just the words.  It meant, I was his girl--forever.  It meant we would never date anyone else.  It meant that we would get married--someday.  It meant we would be together for the rest of our lives.  It was--back then--a very serious statement and I remember how it made me feel.

I would be cared for--taken care of--never have a worry.  He had made a huge commitment.  This man of few emotions and words.  It meant he would work the rest of his days to put a roof over our heads.  To be the boss of the family.  It meant he was taking on a lot of responsibility.  There was no sexual connotation in those words.  We were together three years and still both virgins.  Many of my friends were virgins on their wedding days and had been with their boyfriends for 3-4 years.

A  year later, he was home from the Army, I was a senior, almost out of school and we had sex--once. It was his idea, of course and we both vowed it wouldn't happen again until we were married.  Then I found out I was pregnant, there was never even a thought that he would bail out.  We were going to be married anyway, so we just would get married now.  I did give him the option though, but I knew when I did it, that he wouldn't discard me.  Strangely, we didn't have sex until our wedding night.

On our wedding night, we said it to each other.  There were other words that meant the same thing, showed great love, but never those 3 particular words.  There was no need for them.

If I kept the house clean and made a nice supper for him--that meant I love you.  If he saved enough out of his merger pay check to take us to the Dairy Queen to get a banana split to share--that meant he loved me.  When we had the opportunity to build a small home and he asked me if it was what I wanted and I answered, "Yes."  He went about getting a loan and working with the contractor to build it--that said, I love you.  When he asked if I would help him drill the well (by hand) and I was 7 months pregnant and I helped him--that said, I loved him.

I remember, when my Mother died. I didn't cry for the first couple of days, but one evening, he was home with the kids and I was driving back from my Dad's house up the road, and I totally lost it.  I pulled into the driveway and started screaming and crying and pounding the steering wheel.  He must have heard me because he came out, opened the door of the car, pulled me out and into his arms.  He was kind of an Agnostic back then, but he said, "If there is a Heaven.  I know your Mother is there right now!!"  Obviously those words meant the world to me, if I still remember them, these 44 years later.

Within the "I love you" words was the "assumption" that if he was still coming home each night from work--if I was still there with supper on the table--it meant we loved each other.  Actions spoke louder than any words.

That's why--I guess--in the last years of our marriage, when he started doing his own thing and I started taking over a more of "his" chores, to me that meant, he didn't love me anymore.  What is really weird, the day we went to court to make our divorce final--we sat together, on a bench out in the hallway, and hung on to each other's hands and cried and cried.  We still loved each other, but didn't know how to fix the marriage.

I know, even now, I still love him--that deep feeling inside for him.  I don't particularly "like" him, but I still love him.
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I've said "I love you" to a lot of men since and heard it from a few.  Those words however, didn't really carry the depth of commitment they did back in the day.  It was more of a "I love you now--at this moment."

Fred was the first man, after my divorce, that I really connected with on that deep level.  He said he felt the same way about me.  It seemed like THIS love was more of an equal commitment.  We took care of each other.  It wasn't up to him to care for me financially.  We were a real team.  When one couldn't pull equal weight, the other one, picked up the slack.  

The words however, were spoken every day--several times a day.  Once I remember thinking, the words had lost that deep meaning--that they were said in passing or something.  "I'm running up to Wal-Mart.  Love you, Honey.  See you in a bit."  

I guess the deepest meaning of those words was before operations or when we were scared, or the moments before he died?  In those times, we clung to each other and the words meant--forever and "I would be devastated if anything bad happened to you."

I had that same deep connection to my best friend.  We didn't say the words to each other when we were younger, but in our later years--we said them every time we saw each other.  We knew what they meant--a deep connection that would be for eternity--forever.

I say the words a lot now.  "Love's ya"--thrown out to friends.  "I love you, Sweetheart"-said to my kids and grandchildren. Sure, I mean it, but.  I notice my sister and I do not say those words to each other very often.  I wonder why.  Probably because, in our family, they weren't said much?  Or because they aren't needed because we know that we know that we know--there is that deep sense of commitment to each other--that we would die for each other if need be.  I think I will start saying those words to her--whenever I leave her house or she leaves mine.  At this stage of my life--those just might be my last words to her--we never know.

I guess, in the long run, I wish those words actually were said less and meant more?  Like back in the old days.  





11 comments:

  1. Funny how we can get into moods that take us back to our first love again. I do it, too. Thanks for taking your cyber friends down Memory Lane with you...and you're right about how different our parent's generation showed their love with few words and strong actions. The older I get the more often I try to say the "I love you" words to close friends and family, but like you, I didn't grow up with that being a common occurrence to verbalize those words. It often feels awkward,

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  2. So very interesting, Judy, since my family wasn't real open with affections. I tell my sister I love her, but at the same time, feel almost embarrassed by the words. I have one grandson who always tells me he loves me and it's such a good feeling to hear those words.

    Thank you for your concern for me regarding the storms. The tornado struck about 80-100 ? miles east of us. Such a terrible thing!

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  3. Judy, thank you for thinking of me during the storms. They were bad and so happy my son was with me - oh I hate to see him leave next week :)
    Take care...
    and I love you, is said all the time to her children and the one she was married too
    for 22 years... I have always been very affectionate and say it from the heart when I feel this.

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  4. Judy,
    What a lovely, thoughtful, and thought out post. My parents were the same way.
    My life has been very similar to yours and so often when you write I hear my own voice. Thank you for that important reminder about love and speaking it.

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  5. This post has certainly made me do some pondering of my own. I honestly can't remember how often my ex-husband and I said I love you. We were married 13 years and have been divorced 21 years, but, for the life of me, I can't remember. I guess I've blocked out EVERYTHING! :)

    My Dad told us he loved us, but my Mom never did. I tell the people in my life often how much I love them, from my sons and their girlfriends down to my great nieces and nephews. Like you said, you just never know when you'll be speaking your last words.

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  6. Judy, very nice post. Thank you for thinking of me regarding the storms. Our area was/is fine for now. Margie AR

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  7. What's the old saying, talk is cheap? Actions speak much more loudly and truly than words. Those are words I have never thrown about casually. My daughter and SIL use them excessively (to my taste). When we talk, she often will close with "I love you." I don't usually say that - I feel that I show my love so much that "talk is cheap." Just my fractured thinging I guess.

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  8. this is a lovely post judy. i'd say i love you to sarge and he'd say ditto. he had trouble saying the words but showed me every day his feelings.

    hugs, bee
    xoxooxxoxo

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  9. I'm surrounded by teenagers that use these words carelessly all the time... This is a lovely post that gets to the heart of the real value of love and being a couple. I really enjoyed reading it. Jx
    PS - Bank Holidays are National Holidays in the UK.... Don't ask why it's "Bank"!!!

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  10. It must be undoubtedly a "generational" thing. I can't ever remember my mom saying I love you; but, with my dad, I never had a doubt even though he didn't either speak the words that I can remember. One thing that sticks out from Dad; he was at my house and when he started to leave he said: You and Ma (he called Mom) and Patti; you're my girls. That was just part of the way with him, but he showed us in so many, many ways. I never said I love you to Mom either because I knew I'd cry; perhaps in fear that it wouldn't be returned and the fact she said to me many times "all you ever do is cry".

    xoxo

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  11. When we got married and visited my mother-in-law, H would just say goodbye when we left. One day, I told him he should give her a hug whenever he said goodbye to her. They never hugged or even touched. The next time we visited, he hugged her when we left. I could see how much it meant to her and he did it from then on. It's just the way it was back then. I had an easier time telling my mother that I loved her than my father, but I got there eventually.

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