I grew pretty close to my mom, during the past year,
Having spent so much time with her, helping her, driving her, taking her to appointments, running errands for her, talking with her, taking her out to dinner.

I did all I could to help her life be a little better, at a time when day-to-day living was growing to be very very hard on her.

She would say "I love you this much." and gesture her arms wide.
Then she would widen her arms more, and say, "No, it is more like this much."

Funny, I don't think she ever really believed she was worthy of others' love.
Yet she gave her love so freely, in so many ways.

She would often express her love through her generosity.
She would give so much to others, and keep so little for herself.

As she went through the year, she was always thinking of her family and friends.
She'd see something she'd like to buy as a Christmas present, and buy it.
By the end of the year, she had accumulated so many presents, because she thought of us all so much!   So Christmas usually involved receiving a LOT of presents from Mom.  That's just because of how much she thought of us, how much she loved us.

That was another way she would say "I love you this much."

Just how DO you measure love?   There's no way to really quantify it.
You just know it when you experience it.

After Mom died, I started receiving sympathy cards from friends.
Then more cards arrived.  I was deeply moved by their expression of love.

The stack of cards soon reached over an inch tall.
I felt the love and sympathy expressed.
It became a tangible way of knowing "I love you this much."

But then it continued from just a moving experience for me, to something amazing.
The cards kept coming, and are still coming.
Now the stack of cards is about three inches deep!
I never imagined that would happen.

Just like my mom used to always say, "I love you this much."  and then correcting it...
"No, it is more like this much."

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Copyright: Please do not republish any of these writings without first obtaining my permission. (You may contact me by clicking on the Contact Kevin link).  All of my writings are Copyright (c) 2005 Kevin Gourley. All rights reserved.   Any reference to them should also reference the web page address as well.