Sometimes I wonder what love means.
Once I overheard my father telling my mother how much he loved the scented autumn candle she’d purchased- the way it filled and warmed the house on rainy evenings, when overhead lights just didn’t seem quite right.
The thing is, he would never in a million years have thought to buy a candle himself. Those type of things just didn’t cross his mind. In fact, he never knew he liked them until my mother showed him.
Once I heard my brother say to his girlfriend, “I love the shower curtain you bought me.” He lived with a fellow bachelor roommate, and they had been showering without a shower curtain for months, just accepting a wet bathroom floor as a part of life. Finally his girlfriend remedied the situation with something so simple and, well, tasteful. He too didn’t know what he was missing until she showed him.
And that, I think, is one of the meanings of love. Sometime you don’t know how lovely life can be until someone shows you a different way. It doesn’t have to be big- the smaller the better- but it is new and strange and wonderful.
This is excellent insight, Micah, and very true! It is not the cost of an item but the loving thought in selecting it.