“Why would she write that? I loved her so much. Ask anyone we knew and they will tell you I always talked about how much I loved her.”
The distraught husband was shaking after reading the note his wife left for him after taking a full bottle of sleeping pills.
Jerry, if during our time together you had taken the time to say even once, “I love you.” Throughout our twenty years, every day I told you of my love. You either ignored me or gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before turning away. You never even said it when you asked me to marry you. Now it’s too late. I will never hear those words, but at long last it won’t hurt any more.
She didn’t bother to sign the note. It seemed that in telling the rest of the world how much he loved his wife, Jerry thought his wife would know. How many of us wait for friends and relatives to tell our other half how much we care?
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make noise? And if a man or woman tells everyone except a wife or husband how much they love and adore them, does the spouse ever hear those words?
Something good did come out of that terrible day and that heartbreaking note. Years later when Jerry became interested in another woman, he never hesitated to tell her how much he cared. Oh, he still told other people what she meant to him, but the new lady in his life never had a doubt that he loved her with all his heart.
A few years after Pam’s death, a friend finally asked Jerry why he had not only refused to tell her he loved her, but also acted boorish when she told him. The answer – embarrassment. It seemed his folks were not very demonstrative and when Pam approached him with those three words he did not know how to act or what to do.
Most marriages where love isn’t shown outwardly would not end in this way. Divorce or an uneventful union might be the result. Do we want any of those choices? Why not make every day special for our loved ones and ourselves by letting them know how much we truly care?