‘Love Rarely Announces Itself When It Walks Into a Room.’

Love rarely announces itself when it walks into a room.

We expect love to be loud. The grand gesture, the big surprise, the expensive gift held up for everyone to see. And yet the truest love is usually the quietest thing in the room.

Someone can hand you something shiny and still leave you feeling unseen. Someone else does the smallest thing, and you feel known right to your bones. A person who truly loves you doesn’t always reach for the flashiest gift. They give you what you actually need, the thing that quietly says, ‘I’ve been paying attention.’ It might cost next to nothing. The worth is in the care behind it.

My father barely said a word, and his love was everywhere. ‘We are family, and we help each other,’ was about as much as he would say. My mother loved strawberries and cream and would never buy them for herself, always giving outward, rarely to herself. She left me with a line I will never forget. ‘If you truly love me, show me while I have my eyes open. The day my eyes are shut, it’s too late.’ (Dimitra Malacos, 1930 to 2009).

And this is not a judgement, we have all given the rushed gift and missed the quiet chance. It is simply an invitation to notice the subtle ways love already moves around us, and to add a few of our own.