The Language of Love

Sometime back I was wondering through a bookstore in Penang with the hubby (who wasn't my hubby at the time). I came across a book that discussed the various different languages of love and how understanding this concept could help improve your relationships with loved ones.

For instance, they gave an example how an audio-oriented person may need to hear "I love you" to feel loved, while for another person, receiving small gifts, flowers and notes is that person's language of love. A husband who expresses his love through action, like doing the laundry or washing the dishes, may still be inadequately expressing his love to his wife if she is an audio-oriented person who needs to be told she is loved in order to feel loved. By understanding this fundamental concept and recognising the specific language our partners or family members utilise, we are then better able to express love and receive love.

Recently, I had forgotten that my mother speaks a very different language of love from me. She hardly ever says, "I love you," and when you hug her, it is like hugging a plank of wood and you will never feel her arms around you. Forget about getting kisses, unless you're adorably cute and still a toddler. She is also a rather sedate person. Compare her response to my announcement that I was pregnant against my Dad's. My Dad had been nothing short of ectatic when he heard the news, while my mother's response had merely been, "Mmm... okay." She might as well have been replying to a comment I'd made about the weather.

Since I had gotten pregnant, I have often been queried as to why my mother had never bothered to visit me. I thought very little of it at first because this is quite the norm for my mother. After a while, I started to wonder if perhaps she was somehow annoyed me for some past grievance I had caused her. I'll attribute this temporary case of delusional paranoia to the abundance of raging pregnant hormones circulating my body. It might also partially be due to the fact that I have been acclimatising to the very articulate expressions of love from the hubby's family.

My mother is actually very easy to read. Upon meeting her for the first time, most people often find her reserved and cold, and they often misinterpret this as an indication of her dislike towards them. Well, let's just say that if my mother had taken a dislike towards someone, there is never any mistake about it. If you walk into the room, she'll walk out of it. If you greet her, she'll simply ignore you. If she buys anything for you at all, no matter how small the gift, it is a sign as bright as the sun that you are close to her heart.

My mother is not the sort of person to waste her time on little niceties just to remain in someone's good books. She doesn't care whose toes she steps on or who gets offended by her actions. In her own quiet way, she is a very frank person, who is so unpretentious that you can read the signs of her happy reactions by her lack of negative emotions.

So when my mother started sending over presents for baby Gavin, I knew that inside her heart, she cares. Her love is not expressed by her presence or her words, it is expressed through her actions.