I Love You

I Love You

            There was once a boy who lived with his mother and father. His mother loved him and cared for him greatly. And he loved his mother. But his father didn’t love him. At least that’s what the boy thought. The father was always too busy with work and was away most of the time. Instead of his father reading bedtime stories, it was his mother. She was the one who took the boy to soccer practices. She was the one who always picked him up after school. She was always there to catch the baseball when he threw it up in the air, as high and far as possible, hoping, just hoping, that maybe if he threw it far enough, he could throw it to his father. The boy loved his mother, and she loved him dearly. But the father didn’t love him. Or so it seemed to the boy. Ever since he attended school, her mother would always place a note in his lunch bag. It was always a small slip of paper, with three simple words that made him smile through the brutal hours of school: I love you. Throughout high school and college, she would send with him a note of three words: I love you. He never got tired of it. Not a single day passed without him finding a note with three dear words: I love you. The boy loved his mother. And she loved him as well. But the father wasn’t there. He was always gone, working and running with his coffee and briefcase full of what seemed like indecipherable scribbles of alien codes. The father didn’t love him. That's what the boy thought. That's what the boy knew.

Then the mother passed away. Grey clouds lingered over the boy's head incessantly, and his eyes never seemed to turn the faucet off completely. He had loved her dearly, but now she was not there to return his love. There was no one to love him anymore. His father still live on though. No, not his father. The father never loved the son. So the son felt no need to seek him out. He was alone. Or so the boy thought. But the day after his mother’s death, something strange happened. He received a note. It only had three words, but they were powerful enough to shake his slumbering heart: I love you. The boy's palms glistened with sweat as the note shook violently, almost tearing. How could he have gotten this note? He was terrified at first, thinking perhaps his mother had clawed her way out of the tomb to give him the note. But he shook his head and laughed at his own immaturity for thinking such absurdity. But new notes appeared. Everyday. Everyday, he would either find it in his suit jacket, his brief case, or sometimes even between the lids of his cell phone. The notes always had the same three words: I love you.

Many years later, news reached the boy of his father's grave illness. He still didn’t love his father. After all, he was never there in his life. Work was more important to him than his family. And after all the many, lonesome years, the boy was sure that his father didn’t love him back. But the dying man was still his father. So he went to see his dying father. When he saw his father, the boy could not help but to look away. The old man was more corpse than human, with countless plastic tubes channeling in and out of his body and machines whose beeps created a cacophonous symphony of death and decay. He had aged a lot more than the boy could remember. His hands showed more bone and blood vessels than skin. The father that he knew, which he knew very little of, was a tall, broad man, who seemed like nothing could stop him. Not even his family. But the old man he was seeing now was no stronger than an ally dog, whose sides are filled with long, parallel crevices. The boy didn’t love his father. But the dying man was still his father. He couldn't help but to cover his eye.

Few days later, the father was at his last breath. Before letting out the final sigh that would set him free from years of stress, remorse, loneliness, pain, and above all, work, he stretched out for his unloved son. With shaking arms covered with tubes, he reached for his son’s hands and placed something that made a slight crinkling noise in the son’s hands. And with it, the old man passed away. As the machine hovering over the old man’s head made an incessant high-pitched noise, the son's shoulders bounced and his fists clenched. His lips seemed to bleed as the white teeth sank deeper and deeper. As the doctor placed a white cloak over his father’s face, the son stormed out of the room. His hand in which the mysterious object was placed was as pale as the white walls that surrounded him. He shook violently, even as he walked through the hallway that stunk of alcohol and anti-bacterial sanitizers, and out of the hospital. He slowly opened his closely-knit fist, but there was no need. He already knew what was in his hands and he refused to believe it was what he knew would be. It was a white piece of crumbled paper stained with fingerprints. He raised his free hand and slowly began to unravel the mysterious content of the white note. But there was no need. His eyes saw what was yet unseen. His mind knew what was yet unknown. His heart pounded a rhythm, the same rhythm that played everyday at a particular time. As he finished unfolding the note, two gray spots emerged against the white. Very soon, more gray spots showed up, eventually turning the white note into a gray, soggy one. Even though the whiteness faded away, few black lines remained unscathed. The lines held hands together to form three words, three words that were inscribed in the boy’s heart like a tattoo; three words that were chiseled into the boy’s soul, like a boy carves words into a tree. I love you.

The boy did not speak much at his father’s funeral, if at all. He did not give an elaborate speech like some folks do when their loved ones pass away. He merely sat next to his relatives, neither weeping nor moaning. But when everybody left the scene, he slowly trudged towards his father’s gravestone. He knelt down in front of it and gently placed his hands over the top. He leaned towards the freshly carved marble tablet and kissed it. He opened his mouth and spoke softly, almost a whisper, three words. The boy loved his father. And the father loved him dearly. Always.