There are moments in life that seem almost insignificant when they happen, only to reveal themselves years later as something much bigger.
For me, one of those moments was a phone call with my dad.
It was November of 2016; not long after I had officially moved to Orlando after Thanksgiving. We were talking about moving in, and whatever fathers and sons talk about when they live in different places and are trying to stay connected. Nothing about the conversation seemed particularly extraordinary. Eventually, we got to the part where we said goodbye.
And my dad said, “Te amo.”
I froze.
Not because I didn’t love him. I did. I do.
But I wasn’t prepared to hear it.
My dad wasn’t someone who said those words very often. In fact, I don’t remember him ever saying them to me before that moment. And suddenly, there they were, sitting between us on a phone call that had otherwise been completely ordinary.
I didn’t say it back.
For years, that has been the part of the story that has stayed with me. Not just that my dad finally said “I love you,” but that I couldn’t immediately return it, and I’ve always wondered why. I think part of the answer is that those words carried so much weight for me precisely because they hadn’t been said very often by him. My dad has always loved his children. I never doubted that. He just came from a generation, family, and culture in which love was often something you did rather than something you said.
For many like my dad, love was showing up, working hard, making sure we were fed, worrying about where we were and when we’d be home; love was advice, sometimes solicited and often not. But most certainly, love was sacrifice.
The words had not been necessarily required because everyone understood what the actions meant.
Maybe that’s what happens to all of us. We inherit a vocabulary of love from the people who raised us, and then somewhere along the way, we have to decide what parts of that vocabulary we want to keep and what parts we want to expand. Similarly, our parents were learning, too.
They were raising children with whatever emotional tools had been handed to them. They were figuring out how to be parents while carrying their own histories, their own fears, their own limitations, and their own ideas about what it meant to be strong. Somehow, despite all of that, they loved us. They loved us imperfectly. They loved us consistently. They loved us in ways we understood immediately and in ways it took us decades to recognize.
I know what it felt like to hear those words from my dad for the first time and not know what to do with them, and now I hear both of my parents say them so naturally that I almost take them for granted. Almost.
Because when I stop and really listen, something happens inside me that is difficult to describe: it isn’t excitement, or relief, it isn’t even happiness, exactly.
It’s contentment.
A deep, quiet sense that something in the universe is exactly where it is supposed to be. Maybe that’s what feels transcendental about it.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much of our lives we spend waiting for the right words from the right people at exactly the right time. We wait for the apology, the acknowledgment, the promotion, the recognition, the invitation. We want to be told that we are loved, appreciated, wanted, seen. And so often, we convince ourselves that once we finally receive whatever it is we’ve been waiting for, then we’ll be able to relax.
Then we’ll feel whole. Then we’ll be content. But what if contentment doesn’t work that way? What if it isn’t about getting everything we want, exactly when we want it, but about being able to look around at our lives and recognize what is already here — to actually bask in it and let it be enough for a moment?
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask for what we need, or accept less than we deserve, or stop wanting more from ourselves and the people we love. It simply means we don’t have to make our peace dependent on receiving those things. Sometimes what we need is already being given to us, just in a language we haven’t yet learned to understand. Sometimes we aren’t ready to receive it when we first ask. There is something deeply comforting about believing that what is meant for us can arrive when we are finally capable of hearing it, accepting it, or allowing it to change us.
Perhaps that is the gift I didn’t realize I was receiving all those years ago. Not just the words, but the timing. The becoming. The realization that I didn’t have to force the moment into existence. It came when it came, when all of us were ready for it. And now, when I hear my parents say “Te amo,” I don’t find myself thinking about how long it took or wishing it had happened sooner. I find myself basking in the simple fact that I get to hear it at all.
Maybe that is contentment: not having everything, not having every question answered, and not having every wound perfectly resolved, but being able to look at what is here, truly look at it, and recognize that it is enough.
To trust that what we don’t have yet may come to us when we are ready to receive it, whether that means hearing the words, understanding their meaning, or finally allowing ourselves to believe what has been true all along.
For now, I have my parents. I have their voices. I have those two little words, “Te amo.” And I say them back. Not because I finally got what I was waiting for, but because I finally understand that I was never without love in the first place.
Jerick Mediavilla is a former journalist from Puerto Rico, an educator in Central Florida and a human rights activist for the LGBTQ+ community.
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