How often do you tell the people around you that you love them?

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Listen, how often do you tell the people around you that you love them? If you don’t, this is your cue to start.

Let me tell you a story. Growing up, we were deeply loved. My father used to show it in several different ways, he’d make sure that we’d always go for Sunday service together, thereafter, he’d take us out. My favourite childhood hangout was Bimbo ice cream. And as we drove away from church each Sunday, whenever he asked where we should go to, I was always tasked by my siblings with answering him because it was well known that I was a favourite child. His trips abroad always had him bringing us back lots of new dresses. I always felt like a princess in the Tantantala dresses that he bought me. He loved the finer things in life, and he made sure that he introduced us to all of them. I carry myself the way I do today largely because of the way my dad carried himself. Him and malala were like 5 and 6. He took us to the best schools and fed us on the finest foods.

But I don’t ever remember him ever telling me that he loved me. I just felt it. To this day, if someone is not gifting me stuff, taking me places, buying me food and trinkets, I cannot believe that they love me. It’s simply my love language now.

My mum, never said that she loved me either. I speak for myself because I can’t speak for my other siblings. Children tend to experience parents differently even when they live together in the same household.

But her eyes…..my mum’s eyes would tell it all. If she was proud or happy with you, her eyes shone bright like shiny crystals and lit up the whole space. You could feel the love overflowing from her. Her lips would open wide and she’d give you the most beautiful smile just before hugging you.

Her love language towards us was acts of service.

Banange my mum toiled for us, especially after my Dad’s passing when life turned upside-down. She immersed herself in her work, raising and educating us. In due time, this even took a toll on her already weak heart, as she had been born with a congenital heart problem, which we only got to know about just a few months to her death.

Because my parents were not really verbal with their love, as kids we never also used to say it out loud to each other or to them. Looking back now, I feel like it was strange. When my mum died, it was the biggest guilt I felt. That despite it all, I also never once told her that I loved her out loud. This guilt ate at me so much after her death that I was having constant nightmares about it.

Finally one night, when she came to visit in my dreams, I finally told her how much I loved her. I apologised for not having said it while she was still alive. She only nodded and smiled.

That’s how I was eventually able to sleep well again.

So I vowed that it’d be different with my children. Much as I’d incorporate both my parent’s love languages, I was always going to tell my children that I love them at any small opportunity.  Morning,  afternoon,  evening…all day, every day.  In my home, these words flow naturally.  My kids knock and say Good morning and tell me how much they love me, and I say it back every morning. Night time, it’s still ‘Good night Mummy, I love you’, as I hug them and say the same back. These are our daily rituals. We all express our love for each other, incorporating all my parent’s love languages and verbally. And this makes me feel so fulfilled, loved and blessed.

Social media nowadays has somewhat degraded love to a point that if you’re emotional, sensitive and empathetic, you’re deemed weak.

You’re deemed weak by hurt people, who don’t know themselves, don’t love themselves, have never been loved by anyone…people who have done absolutely no work internally, no self-reflection, zero internal growth.

They’ll criticise how you take many pictures of your children, how you love on them, how you dot on them, because it’s simply something they’ll never understand because they’ve never experienced it.

But ultimately, all those memories you create, all the pictures you take will be your legacy in your children’s eyes. Not the houses you built, not the cars you bought, not the businesses you made, but the Visitation days you never missed, the times you held their little hands when they fell, the times you laughed heartily over a shared ice-cream date, the moments you were just present and mindful of them and their little successes and troubles.

One day your child is going to sit down with a stranger and tell them how it felt like being raised by you. Right now, how you choose to raise them is the story that will be told on that day.

Just like I’ve told you about Omwami n’omukyala Kintu today.

I leave you with that thought.

Img: freesvg.org

Written by

Anita Victoria

Founder, Director, CEO at Delish By Anita

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