Bookend Love

"The first words I ever heard, were whispered to me on my birthday, 69 years ago. My mother, lying in a hospital bed, exhausted, weary, yet vibrantly happy from the strain of bringing me to life, held me to her on that November day and cried the words 'I love you' to my tiny velveteen pink ears.

She loved me with a bookend type of love.

Just as she didn't know what to expect when she met me in '48, she wouldn't know what to expect for the next 66 years that she spent with me. The experiences she would show me, the life she taught me to live, the heart she tuned with her character... the person I am today. None of it. But in that moment it didn't matter, because she knew just as I was taking my first breath, when she would take her last she would still feel the very same.

She loved me with a bookend type of love.

The years that followed were filled with light-heartedness, laughter, 3 more sisters, memories, grandchildren, and just life. However there was also distance, disagreement, death, disappointment, and divorce. No matter how close we were, if I saw eye to eye with her, how hard our relationship was, or even how often I saw her, through all of it I knew that one thing was constant and would never change.

She loved me with a bookend type of love.

And on that day in December, 4 years ago, I walked into her hospital room to find her in a very similar position as to when we first met. She looked tired, worn, yet well-loved from the life she had lived and given to me. Her eyes were closed and she hadn't spoken in days but I needed her to know one thing. I got down close to her face. Right next to her small delicate ears. The ones that were the first to hear me cry, the first to listen to my ideas, complaints, and arguments, and the only thing she really had left of her life. I whispered to her the words she first taught me. With her eyes closed, and teeth on the bedside table she breathed back, "I love you". That was it, and 6 hours later she left me.

She loved me with a bookend type of love.

I love you like that. I love your mom and your sisters like that. From beginning to end I always will.

And Malorie, you love him like that... don't you?"

"Yes dad. I do"

I love you with a bookend type of love.