This is a compensated post whereby I’m receiving a $50 Visa gift card but YOU can win a box of chocolates. Just in time for Valentine’s Day!
I have a lot of love stories in my life. Perhaps it’s because I love a lot. I love hard, I love fast, and I love deeply. It’s just the way I do things. When I first read the book “The Five Love Languages” years ago I finally realized some things about myself. One, that I enjoy physical touch. Whether it’s my children brushing my hair or my massage therapist knocking out some kinks or a date who touches the small of my back when we’re out for dinner, I love physical touch. As a recovering hugger (I can’t hug my students all the time, but that side-hug thing seems to work out well!) I know how enjoyable it is to be on the receiving end of a comforting squeeze.
While I can tell a story about how much love I’ve given away, though, I’d rather share one about how much love I’ve been given.
This is a love story about my daughter.
There are a thousand love songs written about a significant other. The boyfriend who cooks and makes amazing dishes just because he can’t wait for you to try something. The wife who carefully decorates the husband’s office and surprises him with photos of herself. The husband who whisks his bride away for a week on some tropical island. Never once have I read a love story about how much j’adore a daughter has given her mom.
Mallory saved my life. She happened at the worst possible time, but a time when I was a wild child. Luckily, the best thing came out of that and she slowed me down. She made me re-think my decisions and focus on what is important. The only reason I went to college was because I had to provide something better for my baby.
She stuck with me when I was a terrible mom and she spent her entire 7th grade year perfecting the face that said, “YOU are the dumbest person on the planet.” When I made mistakes I told her that I was sorry. When we spend food stamps at the store I apologized with my eyes but gratefully went home and cooked her a meal. When she learned, at age 5, to make a pot of coffee she would bring me some in a mug if she thought I wanted some. What five year old does that? She remembers how we struggled financially and knew she couldn’t have every single new Barbie doll that Mattell made. I cried because she couldn’t have it. She took my face in her chubby hands and told me, “That’s ok, Mom. I have enough.”
My daughter was an easy child. I could break her with a look and she would straighten up right away. I never had to stay on top of her with regards to her homework because she did it on her own. When she wanted advice from and English teacher momma, she’d ask for it, but she didn’t want me to give her any special favors.
There was a long stretch of time when I tried hard not to completely suck as a parent, but learning to make mistakes and then get something positive from them is something that came directly as a result of parenting Mallory. She forgives easily, listens to my advice (still! at 23!) and is amazingly tender with me. I don’t know how I got so lucky to learn about what love truly is, that unconditional and accepting love, but she keeps coming back to teach me more.
She probably deserves a box of chocolates for that, doesn’t she?
Nope! You do! Share your sweetest love story in a comment below.
Extra Ways to Enter
Do you really, really want to win? Here are some opportunities for extra entries, in addition to your comment with your Sweetest Love Story:
1) Visit the See’s homepage and sign up for the newsletter.
2) Become a See’s Facebook fan and leave a comment on their page!
3) Tweet about this contest using the #seescandy tag (you can Tweet daily and post the link in the comments below!)
4) Blog about why you want to win the Share Your Sweetest Love Story with links back to this post, as well as to the See’s homepage and post the link it in the comments below.
Enter Now!
Deadline for entries is midnight, PST, Friday, February 5th and we will notify you by email.
Edie Harris Said,
February 2, 2010 @ 8:08 pm
Kelly, this is lovely. Sounds like Mallory is, too. You are blessed.
Mocha Momma » Probably Shouldn’t Say Anything Said,
February 2, 2010 @ 8:12 pm
[...] Enter here. [...]
LaughingMouse Said,
February 2, 2010 @ 10:51 pm
thus far, my sweetest love story is not the guy who nearly forced me into my first kiss by threatening to not get me home in time for curfew. or the **significantly** older guy who used me for other things, willing though i was, I was too young to realize what was going on. It was probably the guy who bought me a dozen miniature multi-colored roses on sweetest day because he was sweet and he liked me. The guy who walked me to my door and gave me what I, to this day, consider to be my *true* first kiss with me standing on the cement step and him on the ground and giving me a friend hug and pulling back into that Hollywood Theatrically perfect close-ness and kissing the most perfect kiss ever. Ever. Still gives me butterflies. That is my sweetest love story, for now. I’m signing up for Match this weekend, so hopefully I can top that soon!
Miranda Said,
February 3, 2010 @ 10:33 am
I feel like my life is made up love stories. I guess my earliest was the reverse of yours- I was that daughter to the mother that needed saving. She still calls me the love of her life and now that I have my own precious daughter I know exactly what she means. I was meant to be my daughter’s mother- she’s the greatest love I’ve ever been a part of. Then there is the romantic love with my husband. We met when I was just 18 and we lived 3000 miles apart. We fell asleep talking to each other on the phone, sent care packages and mix cds for that 1st year we remained separated by distance as he finished his BA. We talked about a life together and having a daughter names Hayley. Now 8 years later we’ve been married for 4 years and our first child, our Hayley, turns 1 in less than 3 weeks.
Traci Said,
February 3, 2010 @ 2:21 pm
The man that would be, and has been now for almost 21 years, my husband saved my life – although he denies it whole-heartedly.
It was the beginning of our sophomore year of college, I had had a relationship end badly at the end of the previous year and was still hurting badly. My parents were – well themselves – and oblivious. The dropped me off 3 days before classes started, leaving me and my baggage on the curb in front of my dorm. I remember piling it all to the side, and getting in line to get my room key, taking the key from the girl behind the desk and thinking to myself “how am I going to get all of this upstairs myself” and then pretty much wondering why I bothered. About then I looked up and there he was. We’d known each other since the summer before, had been good friends throughout and he knew of my break up so had come up just to check and see if I needed help. Just seeing him there I was done, well and truly in love and loved, though neither of us realized it then.
Since then we’ve not spent any more time apart that was necessary – and most of those necessary times were when he was deployed as he’s been in the US Air Force for nearly 20 years now. I don’t know where my life would have gone if I hadn’t looked up and seen him, but it doesn’t much matter because he was.
Kendra S Said,
February 3, 2010 @ 4:20 pm
Before we were married, one Valentine’s Day my husband (then-boyfriend) made me a video card. It was hands down the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me. The short iMovie features photos of us doing all our favorite things together, and has an interlude in the middle where he videotaped me one day being silly on the beach and writing our initials, D+K, equaling a heart in the sand. We eventually wed and the symbol at our wedding was a D and a K together, and the equation has totally stuck since then.