Dear Mom you know what?

Dear Mom you know what?

Something you did for me that I did not take for granted, even though I am not sure if I truly appreciated it. Whenever I was leaving you would say “I love you.” I would always answer, “I love you too.” There were many random times during the day, where you would say, “I love you.” I never surmised a pattern, but I always figured there was one. “I love you,” was a substitute for a lot of things. It could easily replace “Thank you,” or “nice job,” I even recall it being used instead of “that is not funny.” Though the tone in that instance was quite different.

It was no surprise that when I fell in love with someone I would want to tell them. And tell them a lot. I remember the first time I wanted to say “I love you” to someone. I didn’t, in fact I resisted a lot of times before I finally got around to meaning and saying it, all at the same time. Once you find someone to say “I love you,” you want to say it all the time. I would find myself calling in the middle of the day, for no other reason than to say, “I love you.” Too bad text messaging did not exist back then, I would have used it a lot.

At some point, and I am not sure of the reason, I tried to break myself of saying, “You know what?” People over use that phrase. It really means, “Hey, are you paying attention?” To encourage my elimination of the term, every time I said “you know what,” to my girlfriend, after she answered “what,” I would follow it with, “I love you.” It got to be kind of a game. I was surprised how often I said, “you know what.” Sometimes we would driving somewhere and I would turn to her as she was watching the road and driving. “You know what?” I would say. Sometime she would answer automatically and say, “what?” But sometimes she would know what I was about to say and smile very big, then say “what?”

It was the perfect thing to break the silence. When you are staring into each other’s eyes and there is this long pause. “You know what?” “What?” “I love you.”
Years after she had left and other girls had come and gone I realized I did not say “You know what” anymore. I most certainly never used it again on another girl. That would have somehow dirtied it, or turned it into a line, instead of the sincere expression that it always was. There were other lines. There were other little things, but none of them were ever as poignant as “You know what, I love you.”

When Claire started talking she picked up “you know what” somewhere. I would always answer, “No, but I know Who, plays on the same team as him.” Claire still has no idea what I am talking about. Someday she will see the old comedy routine of Who’s on first by Abbot and Costello and figure it out. “OH! That’s what he meant!”

However, early on, I found myself saying, “you know what?” 99% of the time she just says “What?” Then I say, “I love you.” I say “I love you” all the time. It replaces “thank you,” “good job,” “don’t worry we can clean that up,” and any number of other things. And of course it always comes after the phrase, “you know what?”
A few times Claire has, completely out of the blue, said “you know what Daddy?” and she says it in a way that does not mean, “hey, are you paying attention?” Each time I have had the presence of mind to not say “no, but I know Who, plays on the same team as him.” Instead I just say “what?” Each time I have been rewarded with an enthusiastic “I love you!” and a big hug.

She will never wonder if her daddy loves her. And with any luck she will never wonder about anyone else as well. But I can do little for that, other than to prepare for one day when she meets someone and the only thing she can think of saying is “you know what?”

I love you,

Mike