I like you.  A lot.

I have been saying those words so routinely to my children for as long as they have been alive.

And of course I am hoping that they are listening, hearing me. Knowing what I mean and how I mean it.

But I seldom think about the idea that maybe other people are listening too.

What a gift – more beautiful than words can describe – to hear a positive story about yourself where you do something right.

In a life lived in the trenches, at the end of days filled with subtle insults from the twelve year old to the ten year old, with breakdowns over completing chores, with the Duke Power bill reaching an all time four hundred dollar high, with the always persistent question in your mind “Am I doing this alright at all?”, it’s a treasure for someone to say “I saw this good thing in you.  Let me tell you.”

She sat at my table and she said, “My friend was at your house once.”  (I figure it must have been more than a year ago, thinking back to her last drop in.)  “And she told a story that Otto walked into the room and you spontaneously said to him, ‘I like you’.”  The friend added, “She meant it.  She really just meant that she liked him.  You could tell.”  She went on — “And since then we’ve been saying ‘I like you’ to one another because of how affirming is it to know that you are liked.”

How generous for the first friend to share that story with her friends.  And how thoughtful for the second friend to share it with me.

The power of good words can never be underestimated.

You are liked.

Sometimes it’s better than being loved.

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