Just Say You Love Me

The other day, a friend called. She didn’t have any magic words or inspirational quotes. She didn’t offer advice or try to patch up what can’t be fixed. She just said, “I love you. I think about you all the time. I probably don’t say it enough—probably because I don’t know what to say. But I do.”

And that meant everything.

That same day, I got a card in the mail from another friend. Inside, it said, “I’m thinking of you and wanted to do something special.” Tucked inside was a gift card to a spa. Simple. Kind. Thoughtful. And completely unexpected. It was the kind of gesture that doesn’t try to fix anything—just reaches into the quiet to say, I see you. I care. In that moment, it felt like the warmest hug—someone reaching into the silence just to say, you matter, still.

After all these months, I know a lot of people probably don’t know what to do or say anymore. Maybe they don’t want to make ripples in the water that seems so still. I look productive. I function. From the outside, things might even look okay. But that’s exactly when I need it the most—when the quiet has settled in.

It’s quiet now. The meals stopped long ago. The check-ins that used to come daily now barely come at all. And I get it—life goes on. It has to. But for me, it hasn’t moved in the same way. I’m still carrying something that doesn’t go away.

There’s nothing anyone can say to make it better. No words to fix this. And I don’t expect that. This is a walk I have to figure out—not alone, because I do have people—but internally, it’s mine. I’ll never “get over it,” but I’m learning how to carry it, how to live with it.

So if you’ve ever wondered whether to say something—say it. If you think of me, tell me. If you love me, say so.

You don’t have to have the right words. You don’t have to solve anything. Just showing up, even in the smallest ways, matters more than you know.

Because love doesn’t have to be loud or elaborate. Sometimes, the quietest moments—the call, the card, the “I’m still here”—are the ones that carry me the furthest.