Love Language

Food is my love language. To nurture, I feed. I love to cook and bake, I love to create recipes. My daughter and son-in-law came to stay with me throughout the freeze event in Southeast Louisiana, so I have been feeding them abundantly. It makes all of us happy.

One of the struggles I had early in my marriage to Cecil was that food was not his love language. He ate to live, I live to eat. So cooking for him didn't speak love to him. Spending time doing things together was a large part of his love language.

But there was another love language that we developed in our house, short cuts and inside jokes that made life funnier, and hard moments easier.

My absolute favorite came from a story that a coworker told about his nephew. The child was learning about shapes in school, and had brought home construction paper shapes he had cut out in class. He was proudly showing his shapes to his parents, saying things like, "This is a square", "This is a triangle", "This is a rectangle". There was an unrecognizable shape that his mother picked up and asked,"And what is this?" and the child said, "It was supposed to be a circle, but I f*cked it up".

So in our family, whenever you made a huge mess of something, all you had to say was "it was supposed to be a circle". That shortcut and internal language made it so much easier to own up to a mistake.

We also learned in family counseling that it was important to be able to tell someone you were unhappy with their behavior, or disappointed in a choice that they made without using hurtful language. So in our family, we conveyed disappointment by saying, "If I had a barbecue, you wouldn't be invited', or simply, "You are not invited to my barbecue".

Our love language is one of the things I will always miss, because while I share many of those verbal shortcuts and internal language with others, there isn't anyone who shared all of it quite like Cecil.

I'm grateful that I paid attention to our love language, and our inside jokes, and all the special things that we did in small ways to reinforce our love for each other.

Think about how you communicate love. Nurture your love language. Everything needs care to survive. Keep those loving relationships thriving through consistent care.