My Love

The birth of our first child is always the greatest opportunity to live our life again - a second childhood, only this time we're taller, more coordinated and a bit wiser. I remember looking at my newborn daughter with my heart full of feelings I'd never had and loving her with every cell of my body. She did nothing. She was tiny and her eyes were closed most of the time. She just had to be there for me to have that feeling. I remember Gal holding her the first time and saying, "I don't know you, but I already love you so much". It's funny how babies don't need to do anything to be loved. They just need to be.

I wonder when this rule fades or when we, parents, forget it. I remember in those moments I imagined my mum and dad looking at me like that and I knew, with 100% certainty, that love is born with the birth of your child and that I was my love, very much loved.

The perception of love, you see, changes when you become a parent. For me, it was a great realisation mixed with sadness. It was a great feeling knowing how much my parents loved me and it was sad that I only realized it when I became a mother. I couldn't stop thinking of all the previous years, when I needed that feeling during my schooling years - my fights, challenges, obstacles, my fears, failures and disappointments. Realizing my parents loved me when I was an adult was not enough to change the past. It's as if their "love account" was full but I didn't have the "access card" or they didn't provide a "withdrawal facility". In other words, I wasn't able to see it or they couldn't express it. Maybe because they didn't have the skills to withdraw from their parents' love...

"If they only knew how much I love them"? Especially in times of conflict, many parents feel like their kids just don't know, even though they love them dearly. The difference between parents' and children's definitions of love is natural. People form their definition of love thanks to their life experience and closest life agents - parents, family, friends and teachers. There's a 20-year of cultural, generational and experience gap between parents and children and the question is actually who is responsible? Do we need to give or do they need to receive?

Love is a give-and-receive relationship. Assuming the love account is full, the giving and the receiving must match. Yes, loving somebody else is not enough if they don't feel it. Frustrating as it is, knowing how to receive love is not genetic and it is also our responsibility to teach. So when you ask yourself "if they only knew?" think of the answer. How would their life be if they only knew? Just imagine them knowing you love them throughout their life, their challenges, their failures and fears.

I remember asking myself this question when my son was seven. I imagined him at the age of 16, going through the challenges of adolescence, and looked for an idea to establish a withdraw facility to my full love account and wrote him a love story waiting for him when he's ready.