父亲说：今天我告诉过你我爱你了吗

当父亲和我谈话时，他总是以“我今天告诉过你我爱你了吗？”这句话开头。这句话饱含了他深切的爱。

When my father spoke¹ to me, he always began the conversation with "Have I told you yet today how much I adore you?" The expression of love was reciprocated² and in his later years, as his life began to visibly ebb³, we grew even closer...if that was possible. 

At 82 he was ready to die, and I was ready to let him go so that his suffering would end. We laughed and cried and held hands and told each other of our love and agreed that it was time. I said, "Dad, after you've gone I want a sign from you that you're okay." He laughed at the absurdity⁴ of that; Dad didn't believe in reincarnation. I wasn't positive I did either, but I had many experiences that convinced me I could get some signal "from the other side." 

My father and I were so deeply connected I felt his heart attack in my chest at the moment he passed away. Later I mourned that the hospital, in their sterile⁵ wisdom, had not let me hold his hand as he had slipped away. 

Day after day I prayed to hear from him, but nothing happened. Night after night I asked for a dream before I fell asleep. Four long months passed and I heard and felt nothing but grief at his loss. Mother had died five years before of Alzheimer's and, though I had grown daughters of my own, I felt like a lost child. 

One day, while I was lying on a massage⁶ table in a dark quiet room waiting for my appointment, a wave of longing⁷ for my father swept over me. I began to wonder if I had been too demanding in asking for a sign from him. I noticed that my mind was in a hyper-acute state. I experienced an unfamiliar⁸ clarity in which I could have added long columns of figures in my head. I checked to make sure I was awake and not dreaming, and I saw that I was as far removed from a dreamy state as one could possibly be. Each thought I had was like a drop of water disturbing a still pond, and I marveled at the peacefulness of each passing moment. Then I thought, "I've been trying to control the messages from the other side; I will stop that now."
 
Suddenly my mother's face appeared – my mother, as she had been before Alzheimer's disease had stripped her of her mind, her humanity and 50 pounds. Her magnificent silver hair crowned her sweet face. She was so real and so close I felt I could reach out and touch her. She looked as she had a dozen years ago, before the wasting away had begun. I even smelled the fragrance⁹ of Joy, her favorite perfume. She seemed to be waiting and did not speak. I wondered how it could happen that I was thinking of my father and my mother appeared, and I felt a little guilty that I had not asked for her as well. 

I said, "Oh, Mother, I'm so sorry that you had to suffer with that horrible disease."
 
She tipped her head slightly to one side, as though to acknowledge what I had said about her suffering. Then she smiled – a beautiful smile – and said very distinctly, "But all I remember is love." And she disappeared. 

I began to shiver as the room suddenly got cold, and I knew in my bones that the love we give and receive is all that matters and all that is remembered. Suffering disappears; love remains¹⁰.
Her words were the most important I have ever heard, and that moment is forever engraved¹¹ on my heart. 

I have not yet seen or heard from my father, but I have no doubts that someday, when I least expect it, he will appear and say, "Have I told you yet today that I love you?"