Dear Jack,

This morning as we pulled into the parking space at school, I turned around to you and said, “Daddy loves you.”

You curiously replied, “And Mommy? Mommy loves me?”

From there, you began naming off other family members as well.

It makes me wonder about something I have surely subconsciously thought of before:

Do you really understand what it means for someone to love you?

I think you’re now able to begin processing that thought, based on the actions and involvement of those closest to our family.

You recognize that people who give you gifts regularly are people who love you.That’s an easy one!

Another qualifer is a person who has taken care of you in their house. I’m not saying you can’t love a person from school, but that’s not the degree of love I’m referring to.

The kind I am talking about today is the kind where you love that person enough to tell them on a regular basis; enough to where if you didn’t tell them, it would be kind of weird.

Trying to simply qualify what it means when somebody loves you is, actually not that simple. I can understand why the 1984 song, “I Want To Know What Love Is,” by Foreigner was a #1 hit 29 years ago.

At first, the words to the song come across to me as slightly lame ’80′s lyrics, like they are part of a corny pick-up line. However, I think the words to the song are actually very relevant to human nature, outside of romance: “I want to know what love is- I want you to show me.”

I could probably make a Top Ten list of “What It Means When Somebody Loves You.”

But I don’t think that list would be very necessary. After all, you can already tell me which people in your life love you. You didn’t need an explanation or a list.

You just knew.

Love,

Daddy