I Must Remember

While I told Gooly to get ready for lunch, I spied at the corner of my eye, that he had carefully dragged a chair next to his, and mightily pulled down Papah's heavy bag pack. I served his Majesty his simple lunch of rice with chicken and potato.

"Here, Mahmee, sit near near to me," he patted the chair lightly.

"Thanks for saving me a seat, " I replied lamely.

"Oh wow.. thanks for cooking for me. You are a good 'cooker'. I love you, mamah."

It struck me that I LOVE YOU, MAMAH is very much a part of his daily speech.

When I cook, he comes, partly to be a busy body, but mainly to say I LOVE YOU, MAMAH. Sometimes the oil splatters, and I don't reciprocate. I just holler, "Go .. go.. hot! Hot!"

When I tell him a funny story, he laughs. When he is done laughing, he says, I LOVE YOU, MAMAH. Sometimes I am too tired to say, "I love you too." I just smile and hope he understands.

When I wipe his puke on a bad coughing day, he says, "I'm sorry. Thanks for cleaning up. I LOVE YOU, MAMAH." Sometimes I am offended by the foul smell that all I can manage is, "Go back to sleep."

You see, I LOVE YOU, MAMAH serves like a punctuation for him. His speech is not complete without these words. I wonder if he is making up for the lost time in which he was a baby, and he couldn't tell me how much he loved me then? I shudder in fear to think he might be saying all the I LOVE YOUs now for he won't say them next time.

While watching him gobble up his rice heartily, I wondered if on an occasion where he drove me crazily angry, and I tied him up on a cactus and put him under the sun, would he walk in and say, "I LOVE YOU, MAMAH" after that?

I bet he would. His love is that great.

Now for the numerous time I'd forgotten, or had been too tired, too lazy, too angry to say it;

SON, I LOVE YOU TOO!