Letter: Reflections – How Love Works

It’s early morning at the coffee shop.

A new day of autumn sunlight filters through the changing colors of the leaves, many still clinging to the spindly branches of the tree outside the window.

My face is caught on the screen, reflecting my contemplative mood.

An elderly woman slowly maneuvering her way along the sidewalk, alone, passes by, her aged frame bent, her hands firmly grasping the handles of her walker. She glances up and catches my smile through the glass. She smiles back, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

A young mother enters, her little one in tow. Following their purchase, and while awaiting friends that arrive shortly after, the toddler approaches and offers me a bite of her cookie, reaching up with the morsel, smiling broadly at this total stranger. But before I can respond she disappears under the table which accommodates her size quite well, she being quite small. Her mother smiles.

A truck pulls up, a man exiting street side, a woman stepping out on the curb. He comes around and takes her hand. He didn’t need to. She could just have easily managed on her own, it being but a few steps to the door of the coffee shop. They smile at one another.

Another fellow opens the door to the coffee shop for his female companion, she having paused briefly as if awaiting his gentlemanly gesture. Her eyes twinkle. He smiles.

It is so easy to love, to express love, to show by daily exchanges of touches and glances that the other matters.

The eyes, the mannerisms, body language, the position of the hands in proximity to the face, these mimic, reflect, duplicate without conscious realization of what has occurred those who care deeply for the other.

She Face Timed the other day and said, “I didn’t have all these laugh lines before I met you!” She added that she is happy to have them, and that she holds me responsible.

“You’re welcome,” I responded, and smiled back at her.