And be loved...

You know how in Love Actually, there's that cheesy line "Love, actually, is all around us." ...I believe it.

Today, as I mosied to the doctor's office, I saw a pink envelope at my feet. I wondered if it was perhaps a letter somebody had been fired with, the "pink slip," or maybe just an overdue bill. It could have been either, really, and there were scrawled what looked like some toll-free numbers on the back.

But in a bigger scrawl. And sending a much more direct message:

I LOVE YOU MORE THAN YOU WILL EVER KNOW

There was no "dear so and so" there was no "from so and so". Just the message. Loud and clear and on the back of a pink envelope. And laying in the sidewalk along Smith St. I hoped that whoever wrote it meant it. I hoped that whoever received it appreciated it. I hoped that maybe it was just on the sidewalk so that love could be spread.

And then, as I arrived home from the pharmacy, I noticed our mail had come. I rifled through it, as I always do, hoping it wasn't all junk or all for Emily and I saw a yellow envelope. It was the kind that looked like maybe it was sent to "Valued SC Driver" from Geico. But it wasn't. In fact, it was addressed to me.

Consider, for a second, my utter surprise. I never get mail. I figured that Geico had learned my name and not learned that I didn't drive. Then I saw that it was from the American Telegram Company. People still send telegrams? They do.

MOIRA STOP

(Stop what? Though I.)

I LOVE YOU STOP

(Oh, right, I think that's how they signify a new sentence in a telegram.)

IRAQ IS WHACK STOP

(Nice rhyming skills.)

CAROLINE STOP

(Why are we both being commanded to stop?)

Sure, it was a love note from my sister and not from a mister. But I'm still loved. Maybe more than I'll ever know.

(And you probably are, too.)

STOP