sanc1: Share your thoughts about LOVE

Assalam O Alaikum everyone! I hope you are all doing well. Today I want to share something very close to my heart. When I heard about this contest, I did not think twice. Love is a topic I can talk about for hours not because I read about it in books, but because I have lived it, felt it, and seen it in the people around me every single day.

For a long time I thought love was only what we see in films and dramas. Two people, beautiful scenery, sweet words. But as I grew older I realized that real love looks nothing like that. Real love is quiet. It does not announce itself. It just shows up in the most ordinary, unnoticed moments of everyday life.

Real love is shown through actions and sacrifices, not through words. And the clearest examples are not found in fairy tales. They are found right inside our own homes.

My father is not a man of many words. He never sat us down and gave long speeches about how much he loved us. But every morning, before any of us woke up, he was already gone. Out the door. Sometimes in the heat, sometimes in the cold. He never complained. He just went because his family needed him to.

One morning I woke up very early by accident and saw him getting ready in the dark. He was moving quietly so he would not disturb anyone. He picked up his bag and walked out. I stood at the door watching him disappear down the road and I felt something I still cannot fully describe.

That man has never once asked to be thanked. He just keeps going, year after year, carrying us all on his back without a single word.
That is love. Not flowers or speeches. Just a man walking out into the dark every morning so his family can live comfortably.

There was a night when I was about ten years old and had a very bad fever. I kept waking up frightened and shaking. Every single time I opened my eyes, my mother was sitting right beside me. Not sleeping. Just there. Wet cloth ready, water nearby, calm face. She never said much. She just stayed. But that night is only one small piece of her story.

My parents got separated when I was still young. I stayed with my father after that. But after the divorce, my father pulled away from us. I would go to him when school fees were due and tell him I needed help. He would hear me and say nothing. I reminded him again. Still nothing. I felt invisible in my own father's house. My education, my future — none of it seemed to concern him.

My mother was the one who refused to let me fall. Even from a distance, she carried my education on her back completely alone. When fees were due, she would borrow money from neighbors, relatives, anyone willing to help. Then she would spend months stressed and struggling to pay it back. But she never stopped.

She also started her own businesses to support me. She sold palm kernel. She sold palm fruit. She would wake up early, load her goods, sit in the market through the heat of the day — all so that when the time came, she would have something to give me.

These were hard, physically demanding businesses. But she did them without complaint and without ever making me feel like a burden.
She did this not just through primary school. Not just through secondary school. She kept going all the way through university. Every semester I would worry. Every semester she somehow found a way — sometimes at the very last minute, but always she came through.

I think about everything she went without. Clothes she never bought. Doctors she never visited. Comforts she quietly gave up so my life could be a little better.
My father was in the same house but felt like a stranger.

My mother was far away but felt closer than anyone. I pray God rewards her for everything she has done. She gave me a future when nobody else cared to.

Sibling love is probably the most underrated love there is. We argue over the smallest things — the remote, the last piece of food, a seat by the window. But the moment someone outside dares to disrespect them, we become their fiercest defenders without thinking twice.

My brother used to wait at the gate every day for me to come home from school. He never explained why. He just did it. I only understood years later that it was his way of saying he was glad I was home. Siblings rarely say "I love you" out loud. But it shows — in the small, quiet, everyday things they do for you.

Love is not always comfortable. Sometimes it is borrowing money with no guarantee of paying it back. Sometimes it is sitting beside a sick child through the night. Sometimes it is walking out before sunrise so your family does not go hungry.

Love is a choice made quietly, repeatedly, in moments nobody else witnesses. It does not ask for applause or recognition. It just gives, and keeps giving, because that is simply its nature.
I am grateful for every person who has loved me in their own quiet way.

I hope this post reminds you to look around at your own life today — because love is already there. Sometimes you just need to slow down enough to notice it.

I invite @kinggen @jerry97 @sahmie @bossj23 to participate in the contest