WORDS OF LOVE

Now that cell phones are everywhere, owned by everyone from seniors to teens to, it seems, toddlers (“OMG, I am SO over day care!”) I don’t find it as odd to hear publicly broadcast private conversations anymore. Not so long ago I found it startling to encounter someone on the street, talking loud enough for all to hear, even though they were alone – until I’d notice the phone plastered against their ear. “Oh, it’s one of those phones!” I’d think to myself, “Ha! That’s really goofy!”  In those good old days, I found it jarring to overhear a private conversation in a restaurant or at a meeting. Things were written about it in magazine and newspaper columns about manners, for heavens sake.

Not so much now. Maybe we’ve all become used to it. Although, I still can’t quite believe the woman I was standing next to in the Walgreen’s pantyhose aisle recently who was giving someone on the other end of her cell a blow-by-blow description of her recent pelvic exam. Surely some things ought to be private. I winced, but couldn’t help listening anyway – it was the auditory equivalent of not being able to turn away from viewing a car wreck.

Maybe the cell yell will become obsolete when texting takes over. I wouldn’t miss the public conversations. I would, however, miss hearing a sign-off that I began observing a few years ago. It’s common among moms. I figure they are moms because they say things like, “NO, you are NOT going to Amy’s house until you’ve done your homework!!! It’s NOT negotiable!!” Pause. “Love you!” 

The sign-off, “Love you!” is always in sweet sing-song voice, two notes, light and lyrical. “O.K., I’ll pick you up at soccer practice. Love you!” Or, “Give your brother a peanut butter sandwich. Love you!”

I’ve heard so many moms doing this that I started listening for it and began to wonder: is it a trend? Is it phone-in parenting? Is it guilt? As in, “I’m not there right now – do as I say – but I love you.” Is it a simple replacement for, “Bye!” Or “See you!”?

At first I thought it seemed so casual. Not like in the movies, when someone works themselves up to declaring, “I love you! You light up my life.”  It’s more carefree than that – maybe even a bit careless. Yet, as I've heard it so often, I now find it charming and reassuring. As though regardless of anything else, these kids know their mothers love them. How nice. A kid needs that.

When I was a kid, my parents only told me that they loved me when I was being punished. “We smacked you because we love you!” Or, “We made you go to your room for the last hour because we love you!”  The logic escaped me. I always figured, “Yeah? If you loved me, you’d let me watch the last half hour of Bonanza!” (Seriously, for years I was only allowed to watch the first half hour because bed time, strictly obeyed in our house, was 8:30. I could only imagine how all those episodes ended. Adam, my favorite Cartwright brother, was written out of the series before I could even see a whole episode with him in it. )

I have only said “I love you” maybe once on my cell. I barely use my cell phone. I regard it as an emergency device. And so it was about 9:30 a.m. EST on September 11, 2001 that Ken and I spoke on our cells. I was in the car. He was downtown at work. We called to tell each other that we were aware of what was going on. That we were o.k., but scared and no matter what might happen, we wanted to tell each other, “I love you.”  Maybe that’s why “Love You!” ends so many calls. Life is so unpredictable. You want them to know that you love them.  Maybe it’s a habit I’ll develop.