Few months ago, as I scrolled down on my feed, a post about post-it-notes (no pun intended) from my colleague caught my attention. It's not just post-it-notes, it's post-it-stories which she draws up for her son every time before her long work trips. She does that because she wants to be part of his day when she's not physically there with him and because her son isn’t the most expressive one and she wants to tell him that drawings are a great way to express himself, as she does herself, with him.
She sketches out her son's day so that he can look at them, follow or be inspired from these post-it-stories. Topics vary from best vacation stories (because he could remember) as clues hidden all around the house to book hunt starts with incomplete stories, from treasure hunt to stories, stickers... etc.
My favorite story (and it's also the one that gets me tear up) is that after her son gave her a good night kiss before she took a red eye flight, for the first time, he didn't ask her if she would come back earlier. Instead, he asked her if he could come with her next time. And she said yes! It can't get any sweeter than this methinks.
And apparently it can. Are you ready for it?
Recently my colleague was in Hong Kong for a just few days and her son had heaps of school work, post-it stories didn’t happen. She came home to a little stash of carefully folded stapled papers. With it, a rose (pen).
Together, they opened and read each piece with love. He described every detail (it’s mostly Pokémon, airplanes, Monsters & Zombies)... His passion came through, his care magnified and she felt, for the first time since “post-it stories” that he understood what she was trying to do.
She wanted to be part of his everyday, even when she was physically away. And now, their roles have switched—he is part of her everyday. Stories and doodles will always be how they communicate, share and love.
I asked her what love is and to her, love doesn’t have a form or rules. The biggest thing to her about love is the other person needs to know and feel it. That’s love in its purest form. And to me, not only does her son know and feel her love, but he also gets inspired from it and starts his own journey to express his love to her.
My colleague's story reminds me to be more expressive in love and there are so many different ways for us to do so. We just need (and want) to do it because what are words if left unsaid, what are actions if left untaken and what is love if left unexpressed?
Do it right away, my friends.
Wait no more.
Love now.