I like the L word, love. A happy, serotonin, feel good emotion. It’s nice to love, and be loved. And, it’s not just romantic love between lovers and married couples. It extends to the special love and affection that exist between parents and children and vice-versa, siblings, friends and even random people, who leave a positive difference in our lives.

I use the L word quite liberally. I sometimes sign off messages and notes with endearments like ‘Love you aloady muchly’ and ‘Love you loads and loads.’ I say ‘Love you’ at the end of telephone conversations. I always tell my mum how much I love her. I assign the L word to describe my favourite food group, desserts. I love desserts. There I go.  I do it with non-living things like mountains, beaches and undulating terrains. I love natural landscapes. There I go again. 

I pondered. What is love? First to spring to mind was, ‘What is love’ by Haddaway – the catchy song played at clubs/discos in the mid-1990’s. But seriously, the word love and all that it encompasses relate more to the people I love and care for. For me, it’s about listening to them, asking questions, thinking and remembering, saying and expressing, and showing and doing to reflect that love. Particularly to/for my husband, my mum and my family. While it might seem like a tall order, it isn’t. If we do the listening and asking properly, we can do the doing properly.

Listening and asking questions

We talk to people every day. Part of having a conversation is listening, and asking relevant, follow-up questions. We know how to do this. We’ve all asked many questions and paid rapt attention when we were getting to know one or many special some ones in our lives. We are attentive at work related meetings that involve questions, answers and clarifications. We already have those soft skills. It’s a matter of using them to learn and understand more about the important people in our lives.

Thinking and remembering

We need to spend more than the perfunctory 2 minutes to think about how we can be a tad helpful and make our loved ones’ lives a little easier or better. Or give them a pleasant surprise for no reason at all, once in a while. The answers can be found in the conversations we have with them. Provided, of course, we actually ask questions, hopefully, the right ones, instead of talking about ourselves, our family, our work, our friends and the weather.

Remembering the clues and hints will steer us in the right direction to provide assistance or cheer. For instance, what to get for our loved one’s birthdays, anniversaries and Mother’s Day. We are all getting older. Our likes, wants and needs change. Using decades old ‘to-buy templates’ do not work. I know buying things for my mum is especially difficult. More so now as she doesn’t particularly want things and her ailments have stymied her appetite. That said, fruits are still a good bet. But, what fruits? A little chat with her is one way of finding out. And, remembering what she now wants, and can have and not what she used to. Papaya, mangoes and prunes, yes. Not guava. Her dentures can’t bite into them anymore. Not too many bananas because of the high potassium levels.

Saying and expressing

I think I can safely say that most people like to be told they are loved, missed or thought about a lot. I do. Hugs, kisses, and physical intimacy do help build stronger bonds in a relationship. But none of these will matter, not after a while or at least until some of us cotton on, if there are no corresponding deeds or actions. Words ring hollow without genuine effort.

“Too often, people will tell you what they think you want to hear. But if you look closely, you may see their actions do not match their words. Whenever this happens, pay attention to their behaviour, not the words that are being spoken[1].”

Showing and doing

Showing you love is not about cursory, tick-the-box phone calls at fixed times each day that are triggered by reminders on our mobile phones. It’s not about selfies, pit-stops and brief hellos and goodbyes on the way to lunches and meetings that are organised in the vicinity.  It’s about making real time for the people whom you say you love. Not fitting them in to your convenience.  

“Love is not simply a feeling or an emotion. It’s not just words. You’ve probably heard the saying that “love is a verb”, and there’s a lot of truth behind that. Love isn’t something you can just say – it’s something that you need to do. Therefore, love is action[2].

Love is all of the above, and then some.