[2024-02-16] Acts of love and two angels

Earlier this week, The New York Times published 100 Small Acts Of Love. The 100 submissions selected for the article were from more than 1,300 responses Times readers had sent to the question "how do you show affection all year long?"

I chose 20 of the 100 small acts of love—ones that touched me or made me smile. Perhaps it says something about me that the entries that resonated most had to do with writing, doing chores and sharing food. Here are my favourites.

Loving words
  • My husband writes me 365 love notes a year. Many of the topics are small, funny inside jokes. Others are big and deep.
  • When my partner travels for work, we each write daily notes in a small journal that we share with one another when he returns. It’s just little things about the day that we’d have said out loud if we were together.
  • Whenever one of us goes on a trip, we leave little notes behind in unexpected places for the other to find.
  • I began writing my wife a daily poem, starting the first time I kissed her a decade and an half ago. I’ve never missed a day, and she’s kept all 5,000-plus of them. Some are silly, others serious. Mostly, they keep us connected day after day, word after word.
Signs of affection
  • Married 52 years. We always kiss when we’re alone in elevators.
  • Every morning when we wake up, I look at my fiancée and ask her: "Do you know what today is?" She smiles as I respond to my own question: "Today is the best day of my life!" It’s a shtick, but it’s also true. Both of us are late-in-life gays. Every day of living my truth is the best day of my life.
Spending time together
  • Today, every day, and on Valentine’s Day, I will visit my wife of 56 years. We are separated by her dementia. I will tell her what’s been going on outside, as I spoon-feed her in her care-home hospital bed. She says, "Thank you," when I tell her I love her. We both know she would say more, if only she could. We have had a great life together, ever since the second grade. She is slowly leaving, I know that. But we’re a pair until then.
  • My husband was diagnosed with cognitive decline in 2020. Every day, I show my love by making sure he’s OK — taking him to doctor’s appointments, finding the words he is struggling to find and helping him to make decisions. Love can be shown in thousands of ways. You don’t need boxes of chocolates, flowers or gifts. You need compassion, empathy and grace.
Service or chores
  • My husband and I have two small kids. Every weekend, he lets me sleep in as late as I want. I usually wake up, refreshed and happy, to a cup of coffee and apple pancakes. I cannot imagine anything better.
  • We live in a house from the 1800s with a poor heating system. In the evening, my husband fills a hot water bottle and puts it at the foot of our bed so when I get in, the sheets are toasty warm.
  • Six years ago my husband gifted me a most unromantic appliance: a cordless vacuum. He did, however, offer it with an operator. He uses it every day, and I love him for it!
  • My husband puts my towels in the dryer in the morning. He then brings me toasty towels.
  • My husband and I have been married for 43 years. He is not big on presents or daily expressions of love, but he will drive me anywhere — the airport, doctor’s appointments, shopping trips, wherever I want or need to go. And he will patiently wait for me. This way of expressing his love speaks volumes, and it has become especially precious as we grow older together.
Food
  • For more than 21 years, my husband has given me the last bite of his dessert, always.
  • My husband has been in a nursing home since 2021. I bring him a sausage, egg and cheese on asiago bagel every Sunday morning, continuing our tradition of going out for Sunday breakfast.
  • Every night before we go to sleep, my boyfriend and I tell each other our high, low and "best bite" of the day. When we are both busy with work, it is a great way to talk about the key points of our day. We also both love food, so highlighting our meals makes it special.
  • I have half a banana for breakfast, and my husband always carves a heart on the cut end.
  • My husband often saves part of a cookie or treat, from work or an event, and wraps it in a napkin so I can try it. It’s usually smooshed and unappetizing by the time it gets home, but I love that he thinks I will like it!
  • I cook breakfast every morning. When we got engaged, he said: "If you cook breakfast, I’ll do everything else." I know a good deal when I see one.
Memories
  • My precious husband, to whom I was married for 46 glorious years, passed away six years ago. But not a day has gone by since when I haven’t blown a kiss to the photograph of him that I keep on my bedroom table.
(How touching!)

Also earlier this week, my daughter told me a story about two angels who were sent to Earth. One was asked to find examples of the good, while the other was asked to find examples of the perfect. When the first angel returned to Heaven, she had many examples of the good to share. In contrast, the second angel had none, for she could never find anything that was perfect. When we look for the good in others, ourselves and our circumstances, we will find many examples. But when we seek perfection—as we define it—we may overlook love expressed in ways that differ from our expectations.

I found it inspiring to read how others expressed or received love. It reminded me of little things my husband has done for me over our 35 years together, such as bringing clean, hot-from-the-dryer cloth diapers and putting them under the bed covers while I slept, leaving an "I LOVE YOU" note on my computer screen, getting up every morning to make me breakfast and send me off to work with a lunch and snacks, and driving me to the many appointments I had during cancer treatment. That's some good love.