The love that I know

The love that I know doesn’t knock on the door— it arrives quietly like a breath, slipping in sideways— sometimes it’s just a shift in posture to make you feel comfortable, a shoulder angled to shield you from the wind. Sometimes, it’s the way someone waits, without needing to be asked.

It speaks in half-smiles and packed lunches, in “Call me when you’re home safe,” in the hush between two people who’ve learned that silence can be enough  The kind of love that the children do— without thinking too much. They hand it over with jam-sticky fingers and wide-open hearts, trusting you’ll catch them— because they don’t yet know some hands let go.

Parent love is of a different kind— wild, unreasonable, and bottomless. It wakes up every three hours. It goes without, so you don’t. Even empty, it saves the last warmth for you. It’s a kind of holy madness.

A father giving away his only warm coat. A mother scraping half her dinner into her child’s bowl when no one is looking— love that gives without asking back.

Then comes the love of the old— quieter, slower. They love by showing up, even when the joints ache, even when names are harder to hold than spoons.

They fold blankets just the way they used to, tell the same stories twice— and somehow, it matters more the second time.

And love is in the small, searing moments: hands held in grief, a kiss to the forehead that says “I’m still here,” the quiet pride in a parent’s eyes when their child doesn’t notice they’re watching.

The thing about the love that I know is— it doesn’t always stay. But it leaves fingerprints: on cups you still reach for, on the air of old rooms, on the person you became because it was once there.

And somehow, still— worth it.