Why Do You Love Me?

“Why do you love me?” She asked, staring down at me, clearly awake for some time now.

“Huh?” I blinked at her, tears welling in my sleepy eyes.

“I saaaiiid why do you love me?”

“Oh. Cause I just do.”

She flicked my forehead, groaning. “You’re so annoying.”

It was a fair question though. Why did I love her? It’s so difficult to put into words that I don’t believe I have ever given a satisfying answer. It’s like asking why the sun rises every day, or what keeps the stars in place. Nobody seems to fully understand how it started, we just accept it as the way things are. The laws of the natural world.

But really, how can anyone explain to someone else that the profound emptiness went away the moment you first laid eyes on them? That it was as if the air you breathed had never been enough until it passed from their lips.

Does it even sound sane to tell another that, much in the same way we feel a closeness to the divine, there was just something so cosmically correct about their being in your life that you suddenly knew fate wasn’t just something made up to explain coincidence? What if I tried to tell her that I suddenly believed in souls and reincarnation, because the unexplainable sensation she gave me could only be described as having finally reconnected with someone I have been in love with since the beginning of time, but had been separated for a brief but still-too-long period when last I died?

The warmth, the safety, her beauty, her wit, her kindness and voice. Those were all ancillary in comparison to the religious experience that is to be by her side and know that we, like always, found one another in this life too.

Words could never be enough. Human language and convention could never explain it in a way that is sufficient. Melding our very minds would be insufficient. Maybe even our souls becoming one when the universe finally ends won’t be enough. God gave us to one another, to be a constant reminder that there is something far greater than we will ever be. And that is, our love.

A flick against my forehead startled me awake. “Sorry sweetie, I must’ve dozed off again, what’d you need?”

“I SAAAIIIIIIIIIID why do you love mommy?”

“Oh. Cause I just do.”

She puffed out her cheeks and stomped away.

“You’re so annoying.” The words echoed down the hallway followed by giggling.

Smiling, I fell back asleep.