Notes on Love

I feel a note of victory in my chest when my sister tells me my nephew wants to say hi to me over a video call.

As my eyes widen with giddiness, I assume a new childlike voice that surprises me even at its strangeness, my head tilted ready to say ‘hey baby’.

Nothing beats the mirth in my chest, that I’m his favourite. I am tempted to text my brother to tell him this news because I know he will laugh about it and make a new attempt to evoke more vivid memories with him.

I have now run out of questions to ask my nephew. ‘How’s the monster truck?’ ‘How’s school?’ ‘What did you eat?’ ‘Have you been a good boy?’ ‘You’re so tall now’ to which his responses are glib, a smooth affirmation from a satisfied belly.

I wonder what people tell children because the next question ringing in my head is ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’.

I am eager to ask because I cannot distinctly remember my childhood experiences due to an extreme suppression of them but I remember how my answers ranged from pianist, to air hostess to rapper.

His hands are flailing about and he’s picking at his food. I tell my sister that I’m done because I have nothing else to say to my baby boy and secretly because I miss talking like myself.

It makes me wonder why I have to assume an infantile attitude when speaking to children and if it’s an indoctrination from all the children’s movies I’ve seen.

I tell my nephew ‘bye my sweetness’ and his haphazard wave makes me giddy again.

I have all the endearments at my fingertips. From sunshine, my beloved, love of my life, love of my soul, love of my brain, darling, to my heartbeat. I once called my friend my spinal cord. Everything but their actual names.

Maybe it’s a coping mechanism too, a way to yank myself away from reality too, a way to avoid memories because I grew up hearing my actual name repeatedly. The air in the house then was usually stricter than a military regime so there was no cue for endearments.

How I became a professional in using endearing words to describe my loved ones to me still baffles me and should probably be on my resumé since I’m so good at it.

I have almost told a driver, ‘Thank you my love’ because he dropped me closer to my destination and I didn’t expect it.

I now see what love means after that call with my nephew. I know what I feel but I cannot describe it. It is a readiness to do anything for him.

It is an ingrained preparation, almost as if to ask ‘Hope nobody is disturbing you?’ not in a flimsy way but in a way that shows that I’m ready to address it even if I’m miles away.

I do not feel like this all the time and that’s how I know that if this isn’t love, it is a gigantic mimicry of it.

Later, I laugh loudly on another family video call as my sister teases my brother that my nephew wanted to speak to me and not my brother. I laugh because of the way my brother expresses his shock.

I laugh again while telling him ‘sorry’ mockingly. ‘You have to try harder’ I quip. ‘I’m his favourite now o’ I announce even as the video lags, feeling the same note of victory in my chest.

This note of victory is beyond a filial inclination of being an aunt. So I start to think of all the ways that evoke this feeling.

I think of my mother who told me she wished she were in pain instead of me when I told her that I was in pain.

She said it matter-of-factly and I became undone. The sob purged through my diaphragm and I let out a snort instead to avoid being dramatic. ‘For real?’ I asked her.

She looked at me as if surprised I would question it, ‘Yes now. It is better for me to feel the pain than you to feel the pain’

‘But I don’t want you to be in pain either’ I said. ‘It’s somehow now’ I added, and she shakes her head in that familiar way she does when I ask things like ‘Why are those people wicked?’ and ‘Is this how we’ll pray for life?’.

I know what it means. It’s a stretching of self that is already ingrained within her, a capacious tendency.

She will stretch herself for me. She will do everything that she can for me and it scares me.

‘You’re so sweet’ I tell her.

‘Madam sacrificial’ I add and she playfully ignores me.

This memory lingers and again, I know that I feel something I cannot name for my mother, and for no reason, I want to cry all of a sudden.

I text my brother to say ‘guess what I’m doing?’ and I cannot wait for his response so I tell him already that I’m trying something new to which he responds ‘wow’.

I ask him if he has opened the link because I know my brother will say ‘wow’ even if the link leads to an error 505 message.

He is prepared to love me. It is that preparation I sense when he calls me to tease me every time.

After I sent a picture of my nose piercing to the family group, he sent a dancing sticker to which I questioned because it is not in his nature to not compliment me.

I tagged him in the group to ask, ‘Why didn’t you compliment me?’

He said he sent the sticker as a response to the message I added underneath the picture that my mother does not like my piercing to which I told her, ‘Mummy we’re in 2026 please don’t start’.

He then goes ahead to tell me I’m the most beautiful woman in the world to which my sister quickly adds that I’m not special because that’s what he tells her too and I laugh again because I love them both.

I feel a longing to protect them sort of even with my tiny arms but I can’t because it is impossible.

I wonder if that is a love instinct, to protect instead of to let go.

The siblings’ WhatsApp group feels like a shield sort of and it is a living reminder of my ability to feel something different, long-lasting, and unnameable.

I always tell random people I love them because I do. Someone once told me to be careful because it can be easily misconstrued and I listened for a short while.

It is so easy for me. Why? God is love. I also have a bit of an empathy bone in me so I can jump to say ‘omg I love you’ for the most random things but I now realize that I have felt differently in all my proclamations of ‘I love you.’ From my family to my friends to acquaintances to strangers.

For my siblings, I think it’s beautiful, that softness within, the excitement to share good news, the worry to shield them from bad news, the pain in sharing my pain with them but at least I know they will listen.

The fights too, ‘Labake you don’t listen’ ‘Why are you always like this?’ ‘Mummy said I should talk to you Labake’ to which I would retort ‘It’s not funny, nobody is listening to me too.’

But deep down, I would feel them close, almost physically tugging at my heart itself, sometimes a soft pulling, other times a violent cascading.

It is almost like a whisper that energizes me daily and says to me ‘you can do anything’ with the assurance that they will be present, my brother typing ‘wow’, my sister asking me ‘what’s next?’ and my nephew smiling from afar.

Ah, my sweet sweet loves. Them, you, the driver, everyone.

Happy Valentine’s Day indeed.