This is a story about how I learned what love is.
This is way before I met Bill, but it's part of the story.
It's funny. After reading Kyle's post, I remembered something from my child hood. I was 8 or 9 years old.
It was a little after dark on a late fall evening when I decided to disagree with something that my Mom told me to do. I told her that I didn't love her anymore, that I hated her and that I didn't want to live there anymore!
I confidently expected her to just totally cave in and beg for my forgiveness.
Instead, she laughed and did a lil dance and said, "This is great!" as she slapped a hat on my head, pulled a warm coat around me, handed me my shoes and pushed me out the door. As she slammed the door shut I heard her yell, (for my benefit...) "it was very expensive to feed you, you know! Your sister will eat better now!"
(Of course, this was all nonsense, we had plenty of food on the farm and enough money, everyone ate well.) But at the time, I was crushed.
I tearfully put my shoes on and started walking in the chilly night air in the only direction I knew; down the road towards the other farm. Maybe my grandmother would take me in, even though I had been really bad.
Maybe I had walked 5 minutes before I saw the headlights. It was my Dad coming home for dinner and he stopped the pick-up truck and got out and picked me up in his arms. Why was I walking on the road, he wanted to know, and I tearfully confessed my words of hatred to my Mom. He hugged me a little closer for a bit, then looked at me and said, "I think I'll be able to get you back in, but you are going to have to apologize to your mother." I promised I would, but I didn't miss that glint in his eye that said that this was a little funny to him and yet very sweet.
He brought me into the house and asked my mother very calmly if she would let me come back if I apologized, and she very calmly and seriously said that she would if I did. I did, but I saw that same glint in her eye.
They were both in on it, of course... and that is one of the times when I knew that my parents really loved me, knew it for sure, because they loved each other first and then gave that love to me.
It hurts me to think that a kid should grow up without that glint of love.
This is way before I met Bill, but it's part of the story.
It's funny. After reading Kyle's post, I remembered something from my child hood. I was 8 or 9 years old.
It was a little after dark on a late fall evening when I decided to disagree with something that my Mom told me to do. I told her that I didn't love her anymore, that I hated her and that I didn't want to live there anymore!
I confidently expected her to just totally cave in and beg for my forgiveness.
Instead, she laughed and did a lil dance and said, "This is great!" as she slapped a hat on my head, pulled a warm coat around me, handed me my shoes and pushed me out the door. As she slammed the door shut I heard her yell, (for my benefit...) "it was very expensive to feed you, you know! Your sister will eat better now!"
(Of course, this was all nonsense, we had plenty of food on the farm and enough money, everyone ate well.) But at the time, I was crushed.
I tearfully put my shoes on and started walking in the chilly night air in the only direction I knew; down the road towards the other farm. Maybe my grandmother would take me in, even though I had been really bad.
Maybe I had walked 5 minutes before I saw the headlights. It was my Dad coming home for dinner and he stopped the pick-up truck and got out and picked me up in his arms. Why was I walking on the road, he wanted to know, and I tearfully confessed my words of hatred to my Mom. He hugged me a little closer for a bit, then looked at me and said, "I think I'll be able to get you back in, but you are going to have to apologize to your mother." I promised I would, but I didn't miss that glint in his eye that said that this was a little funny to him and yet very sweet.
He brought me into the house and asked my mother very calmly if she would let me come back if I apologized, and she very calmly and seriously said that she would if I did. I did, but I saw that same glint in her eye.
They were both in on it, of course... and that is one of the times when I knew that my parents really loved me, knew it for sure, because they loved each other first and then gave that love to me.
It hurts me to think that a kid should grow up without that glint of love.
