My uncle is in his eighties. I love the story of how he asked for my aunt's hand in marriage, sixty years ago. He was in England and she was in the States at the time. He considered his options. There was the phone, but international calls were expensive and unpredictable. There was mail, as in paper and ink, plastered with lots of colorful stamps. Friendly, but not romantic enough. Then a new idea came to him. He wanted her to hear his voice, so he decided to record a proposal for her.

 

We are talking pre CD, pre audio cassette. He used a reel to reel. Carefully he poured his heartfelt intentions on to a skinny brown tape, with sweet promises for the future. Anxiously he wrapped it up and mailed it across the ocean, knowing that it would take weeks to arrive.

 

Unfortunately, the recording speed was set on slow, or perhaps machines are simply different between the two countries. But when Aunt Louise eagerly turned it on to hear the voice of her beloved, it sounded like the sloooooow draaaaaawl of a blue whale. She could not understand what he was saying. She wrote back to him that as much as she wanted to hear the words, she simply could not decipher them and would he mind trying again?

 

I imagine Uncle Frank's hopes were deflated when after a month of anticipating a loving and enthusiastic "YES!!!!" he got a tear stained letter asking, "What did you say?"

 

But does the plethora of methods actually change the messages themselves?

 

The beginning of life on this planet, and the end do not take full advantage of these technologies. Newborns manage to make their feelings known without words at all. The other day I held a friend's freshly minted baby and was speechless with her innocence. All the verbal concerns I had piled up since noon evaporated. I was captivated by the sight and feel of her. She did not talk either.

 

When my mother was dying, she did not seem eager for conversation, much less texting. Yet her influence lingers with me these four years past. Near the end, my twins were playing on the bed beside her and I was concerned about how my mother felt about it.

 

"Mom, do the children bother you?" I asked, although she had not spoken for hours.

 

"If the children bothered me I would have left a long time ago."

Here is my invitation to you. See if you can try a fresh way to express love to your spouse, even if you have not yet found him or her, even if she or he has gone to heaven before you. 

 

Words are one way...but there are more.