Love Language

I'm sure you've heard the expression. It refers to the way you express love toward others through your actions. 

Throwing parties, cooking, gift giving, special occasions, are my love language. It's always been true, ever since early childhood. I often go to great lengths to make my occasions stand out in the memories of those I love. 

A lot of times people around me don't get it. My mother used to tell me I was generous to a fault. I still don't understand how generosity can be a fault, but if you know, please avoid telling me. I enjoy living in my own world where generosity is a good thing.

Mine has never taken food off of my table, so I'm fine with it. 

Recently I received a wonderful and generous gift from my niece and nephew, ages six and four, respectively. 

We were all together on a family weekend, staying at an Airbnb before Thanksgiving. I was busy cooking and helping my niece with craft projects when I started to feel a little headachy and run down. I needed to lay down for a bit and that's what I told my niece and nephew. I promised to return for more fun as soon as I'd had some rest. I laid down for about an hour. 

When I got up, Andy came in and said, "The kids have something they made for you. They want to show you."

How sweet. 

Andy took me up to their room and to my surprise and delight, they had decorated the room with a plethora of "fancy" pipe cleaners that they had bent and twisted into decorations. On every lamp, light switch and every piece of furniture, were these fabulous, sparkly contortions! They made presents and wrapped them for me! There were snacks! They had dimmed the lights and they had Andy start the music. 

My niece exclaimed "We made you a dance party, Gramela!" ("Popcorn" by Gershon Kingsley performed by "Hot Butter" 1972  Popcorn Original Song - YouTube )

Ooh. A dance party. For a headache. Thrown by a six and four year old. 

I'm IN!

We danced and laughed and danced some more until we were sweaty and tired. After the dancing died down, I looked around at the beautifully decorated room and it hit me. 

The kids had been paying attention. They noticed all the times I visited with gifts and ways to make our time together a special occasion. Under the actions of making the crafts and giving the gifts and playing the games and baking the cookies, was the love, and they knew it. 

How can I be sure? Because as the glint off of one of the sparkly pipe cleaners, dangling from a drawer pull, caught my eye, I realized the obvious truth of it. The children were speaking my love language back to me. I heard it loud and clear, as "happy tears" streamed down my cheeks. 

I still have all of the sparkly pipe cleaners in a box.

How could I throw away a box filled with love?

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