The main character in Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow, goes to sleep on the eve of her 40th birthday and wakes up as her sixteen-year-old self in the 1990’s. As she reacquaints herself with the past, she remembers the popularity of pagers and types 143 to say I love you to her best friend. I have never heard this phrase.

The same day I read this 143 line I saw a Facebook post about Pennsylvania naming May 23, “143 Day” in honor Fred Rogers.  Mr. Rogers, a Pennsylvania native, regularly used “143” (based on the number of letters in each word) as his special code for “I love you.”  I read about  “143” twice in one day! Weird, right?

Have you ever learned something new and then quickly come across it again? A word, a song, a fashion trend? It happens to me all the time. At four in the morning, the day after as I started writing this post, while reading a different novel, I learned there is a name for this sensation.

Meaningful lllusions

It’s called frequency illusion. It happens when you learn about something for the first time and suddenly start to see it everywhere. Evidently, when we are exposed to brand-new information that we find interesting, our brains take notice and start to look for more examples of this fascinating newly learned information. Then, because we think we’re seeing something repeatedly, our brain pays more attention to that thing rather than something else. We notice it more and this confirms our belief that this new piece of information really is everywhere.

I prefer to think of these repeated sightings as meaningful messages from the universe. Similarly, I see the great lines I read in books as personal messages, sometimes about things I want or need to think about and sometimes not. This line about “143” was a message, and a repeated one at that!

Let’s Get Personal

I don’t come from a family where we regularly say, “I love you.” I imagine my father’s family never said it and my mother’s did. We ended up somewhere in between. Although I write it in cards and letters, it’s rare for me to tell my family that I love them. Rather, I say it when I want them to hear it.

When my daughter and I have heated philosophical discussions via text, every now and then I lob a “love you sweetie” at her with a smile emoji with hearts for eyes. I hope me reminding her that she is fiercely loved helps her with her struggles. Sometimes I need to say it—like last week when I dropped my son off at the airport to catch an international flight. I gave him a hug and an “I love you,”—and then I cried for ten minutes in the car. For me “I love you” has a time and a place.

I don’t end phone calls with “love you” or send my love into the air every time I leave the house. I notice my husband and his brother say it to each other at the end of their phone calls. It makes me happy inside to hear it. My heart warms even more when his brother says it to me at the end of a call.

It’s never something my sister and I say to each other when we speak almost every day, but just yesterday when she called to check on my dog recovering from surgery, she must have heard the fear and frustration in my voice when she slipped a slow distinct “I love you” at the end of the call. It was as if she’d given me a hug through the phone. I took a deep breath and thought about the meaning behind her saying it on the afternoon after I had started writing this post. Hmmm.

Actions Speak Loudly

It was my daughter who brought my lack of saying I love you to my attention a few months ago. She commented to me how her friend’s family says I love you at the end of every phone call and every time her friend leaves the house. She asked why we don’t do the same.

My response was defensive— so what? Do those words make their relationships stronger than ours? Do you think I love you less than they love their daughter?  I know she knows that’s not true, and I didn’t feel good rushing to judgement. I backpedaled. Do the words I love you correlate to the love that’s actually present between us? It’s just not my habit, I told her. And shouldn’t what I do matter more than what I say? I could say I love you ten times a day, but if I don’t also show I care, the words seem meaningless to me.

How does anyone know they’re loved?

My father doesn’t tell me he loves very often. Yet, I know the extent that he cares with the same certainty that I know the sun will rise tomorrow. He shows me—with every early morning phone call he answers, every bit of advice he gives, solicited or unsolicited, every picture and story he shares and with every minute he takes from his harried days to listen and support me.

Perhaps my message from the universe is that I need to be sure the people I love and count on know how much I care and can be counted upon in return. Whether I say it or show it, it doesn’t matter, as long as they “hear” me.

Message received. Oh, and Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.

Thanks, Emma Straub, this is one great line!

If you’d like to read more about This Time Tomorrow, click here.

If you’d like to read about me, and why I started this blog, click here.