This was my kid’s answer to the question, “What is something you love about your family?”
It came from one of those elementary school activities that pop up during special occasions throughout the year — the sort of projects teachers use to help make learning fun and meaningful. This particular gem was for Valentine’s Day.
As a parent of three kiddos, I’ve seen my fair share of these school assignments. It’s like how they bring home “All About Me” worksheets at the start of almost every school year. So when this questionnaire about love appeared just before Valentine’s Day, it made sense.
When I sat down with my little one to chat about their answer, they shared that our family is love because we trust and take care of one another. There was a quiet confidence in my child that this would always be true of us.
Their answer about what they love in our family has stayed with me. It touches me partly because of the pure, innocent beauty in my kid’s honest words. Partly because it confirms my deepest hope — that my children truly witness and know love. And partly because it makes me wonder if they’ll always feel and be able to give love. On this day of love — Valentine’s Day — I’m filled with an overwhelming hope that they will.
That my kid witnesses and feels love in our little family unit is no small thing. So many forces seem to work against our family — so many forces work against love. That they recognize and experience love in our multi-racial, multicultural, multinational family is beautiful — maybe even miraculous.
Daily our family strives to embody a love that transcends boundaries that we humans create — a love that endures even as these boundaries seem to grow more rigid with each passing day. When my child said they “love love,” it gave me hope that society’s divisions and narrow definitions won’t limit their ability to imagine love’s possibilities.
Even as I reflect on love today, I catch myself thinking it’s silly to write about it on February 14th, a day that seems to celebrate romance, mush, and heart-shaped chocolates. I’m interested in a different love — it’s the kind that shows up every day, through good times and bad, celebrations and tough conversations. It’s consummate and bigger than just one family — a love that can endure through whatever challenges life presents.
That day, my little one helped me reconnect with my own desire to love more freely — to unlearn the things that had hardened my heart, and to help create a softer, kinder world where we can all love as freely as little children do.
My wish on this Valentine’s Day is that our capacity for love grows stronger than the walls we build between us, and that we discover love in unexpected places.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Comments