Afraid of Saying “I Love You”

By: Joao Mendes Dos Reis

My grandfather would hardly ever say, “I love you.” My grandmother would say it more than what’s enough. Her overpraising, his silence.

She would come to us, her grandchildren, and tell us she was cooking her chicken dinner. We were cuddled by her food and her affectionate words made us feel comfortable: “I love you, I want you to grow as strong as a mango tree, so you better have some chicken, meu amorzinho, my little love.”

My grandpa would never do that. Whenever he entered his house’s living room and saw us, four kids screaming and playing, his stern silence would break our noise apart. But we weren’t afraid of him. And he wasn’t trying to scare us, for his silence had some playfulness. He used to hide under the kitchen table, so he could lift his head in a way that his eyes would peek out from under. We noticed him, so we ran around: hide and seek. Once, one of us brought a ball to the kitchen, and my grandpa coming out as tall as a mango tree, “you’re grounded for the whole week,” his brows frowned like eagerness, and his heart opened like tenderness.

In our free time, we watched many movies. North American, mostly. So one year, we pleaded with our parents and did something unusual for the family: celebrate Thanksgiving, just like those North American movies – or kind of. There’s no such thing as Thanksgiving in many South American countries, and we were just fascinated about it. My grandpa ended up accepting the idea. My dad would bring the drinks, my aunt would buy the cake, my uncle would make the barbecue, my grandma would make the chicken… and my grandpa was the one offering the house, so why would he bother bringing food? I insisted on “no chicken at all! Let’s have turkey instead,” to my grandma. She was affectionately honest, “I am sorry my little love, we have no money for that, meu amorzinho.” I said it was okay, meaning that I wasn’t okay with that.

When our made-up Thanksgiving came, it was late at night when my grandpa arrived. My grandma kept calling his phone the whole evening. When he shows up, my grandma runs towards him, arguing as if she was mad, and gives him an upset hug: we all had already eaten her food that cuddled us. My grandpa was as shaky as a ripe mango falling from a tree; my grandma was as shaky as someone who hadn’t had their chicken dinner that day. My grandpa sits on the couch and opens his handbag: turkey is what he puts on the table.

We never knew how he had collected the money for the turkey. I guess we never asked him. I guess he was always silent about it. We grew up remembering it as if he had planted mango trees in order for us to grow love for family meetings – the combination of chicken and turkey made us full of love that night. Somehow, growing up has to do with silence as strength or eating as endurance. Buying turkey was impossible for the money we had, but Thanksgiving was also impossible for the kids we used to be. Struggling, my grandparents made the impossible possible with little things they did. When I become a grandfather, I will ensure my grandkids are verbally aware of my love for them: I will always say, “I love you,” as my grandpa wasn’t able to do. But when I think about him, I know he had his own ways of saying “I love you,” words that would come from his heart, falling from his lips, in silence.