Lucio Buffalmano summarized love language #2, as people who feel loved by another person because that person spends time with them, giving them their full attention. This may seem impossible these days. People seem to always be checking their phones or iPads or to be doing several things at a time. I don’t know whether a chapter needs to be added to Chapman’s book to account for the age of electronics.
Daniel and I saw each other a lot, particularly when he lived with me and worked from home. When we were talking he was often checking his phone. I frequently asked if he had heard what I had said and sometimes he had and sometimes he hadn’t. He did have a time each night when he came into my room to talk. He called it, “his bothering time ” because I was often in the middle of reading or exhausted from the day and was often not interested in a long conversation.
After Daniel moved into his own apartment two years ago, we had a scheduled time to be together. Every Saturday, I took care of Webster while Daniel went to his trainer and then we spent the rest of the day at my house. Some of that time we spent walking Webster or playing with him. There were also things that needed fixing or things that I needed help with. In addition to our Saturday time together, we messaged or spoke on the phone every day and sometimes visited during the week at his apartment. Daniel enjoyed our phone calls. I preferred messaging, given his fast talking and my poor hearing.
While I often felt that I didn’t have his total attention when I talked, I never doubted his interest in how I felt about things that mattered. He half listened to my talking about genealogy or things I had done. He was, however, totally focused and thoughtful in giving advice when I was struggling with how to handle something. Several years ago, I started volunteering for a public school program in W. Philadelphia. The program had two functions: to have volunteers build and maintain libraries and to have volunteers act as teachers to help students with academic work. While the program was mostly focused on the library, there were a number of us working in the classrooms who were really committed to the children and loved our work. These programs had been going on for a number of years. For some reason, the manager of the program along with the board decided to do away with the teaching part of the program. Those of us who did that work were devastated. Daniel and I talked about what I could say to the board. (During this discussion he was not distracted by his phone.) Daniel had a wonderful understanding of how to talk to people, both when there were problems and when there were not, and he was able to have everyone come out feeling good about a decision that was made. I think he went into the music industry already being very good at this, but probably became better in the years that he worked with bands, agents, and record promotion companies. He had clearly thought out strategies which he at times verbalized, when I was struggling to come up with a solution to a problem. These strategies required intelligence, persuasiveness, enthusiasm and sensitivity to people’s needs.
Daniel ended up writing most of the letter that I sent to the head of the Philadelphia program and to the Board. Some days thereafter, I received an email from the director saying she had decided to keep the program, that she was not aware how much of a difference it had made to the classroom teachers, the volunteers and to the children. She said she felt proud to have been part of developing such an appreciated program. She used quotes in her letter, quotes that came from what Daniel had written. She specifically wrote to me thanking me for my letter and and referred to specific quotes that had been instrumental in changing her mind (All of those parts had been written by Daniel). So, while Daniel was not always 100% attentive in our conversations, he was when I needed him to be.
I don’t know that this idea is talked about in The Five Languages of Love but I would add that there are some situations that are really difficult to face alone. Having your partner, or in my case, my son,, supporting you through the difficulties definitely makes you feel loved. Having Daniel in my life was a huge sense of security for me, which I think was a piece of feeling loved. I knew that when I really needed him, he would be there, though he would most certainly be late.