JUSTmyLUCK

Those Winter Sundays
By Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

A dear family friend sent me that poem after my last post (see here: http://justemachance.blogspot.com/search/label/kate%20middleton) and I'm so glad he did. So many times it's the unseen, thankless acts that love is found in and so many times those go overlooked. Of course, once mentioned you think back and review/realize the little things in your life that were done out of love. Dinner on the table by 6, dishwasher unloaded, a dog taken out in the morning. He raises a good point, the unprovoked gestures and acts are most often the sweetest and most love-filled gestures out there. Those acts can be the simplest gesture, making the coffee in the morning or staying in on a Friday night, or the things that are larger in scale but slightly convoluted.

So the next time your sheets are washed or your car is full of gas, remember the love inside those gestures. It makes the little things so much more, and that much more special. And the next time you're wondering if the love is really there, just look back on those gestures to find your answer.