Small Words at the Threshold
The small words I speak at the doorway are enough. I do not need elaborate speech to communicate love.
Have you been worrying that the small words at the threshold are not enough? The hi. The bye. The see you soon. The I love you said quickly at the door with your hand already on the bag. These small words seem unremarkable, and they are also — in their smallness, in their repetition — among the most powerful sentences a child hears. They are the punctuation of a day. They are the small lights along the path of an ordinary week.
You do not have to say a great deal at the threshold to make the threshold meaningful. The smallest sentence, said with a steady heart, carries everything important. I love you. Have a good day. I'll see you soon. The child hears the steadiness underneath the words more than the words themselves. The steadiness is what they take with them.
You may sometimes feel you should say more. Worry can make you wordy. The fear that what you said was not enough, or not the right thing, can pull you into long elaborate sendoffs that the moment did not actually need. Trust the smallness. Trust that the I love you you said yesterday and the day before and the day before that has been accumulating in your child like a slow, deep deposit. They carry it. Even when they cannot articulate it. Even when they are too busy with their own thoughts to seem to be listening. They carry it.
Today, at one threshold of your day, say one small true thing. Not a long thing. A small one. Have a good day, sweet pea. I'll see you at five. I love you. First the small word. Then the steady heart. Then, slowly, the deposit that lands somewhere inside the child you cannot see.