In this moving post, a young Turkish mother reflects on the meaning and significance of love after her children bring back St Dwynwen cards from school.
Dydd Santes Dwynwen (St. Dwynwen’s Day) is the Welsh equivalent of Valentine’s Day. On this day, Wales celebrates the fourth-century Welsh Princess and patron saind of lovers, St. Dwynwen.
Two days ago it was Dydd Santes Dwynwen, and my children made these fabulous cards to reflect their love to me. They gave me these presents with excitement, telling me “I love you so much mum”. I told myself “this is true love, it’s real” without any expectation, with a full sincerity, with being unreciprocated, with full of their child purity. I told them “I love you to the moon and back”.
We don’t need to get huge presents from the loved ones to be happy or as a reflection of love. We need just this sincerity to be happy even with small but priceless, small but important gifts, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a gift of course, it’s just a huge hug from the loved ones for telling “I love you.”
Unfortunately, we were taught to hide our love in our culture, even to tell the loved ones just simply “I love you” is so difficult in my country. What I’ve realised, I wish I could have said more “I love you mum, dad, sister, my friend, my husband, my children”. I already have missed some of them, they are no longer in my life. What I should do is to say “I love you” more to the loved ones before I lose them. Fortunately, it’s not too late for some of my loved ones.