Last Sunday I attended our women's meeting. I honestly can't remember what the lesson was on or why this woman ended the lesson with this, but she told about a children's book she had read once called, "I Love You the Purplest". In the book she says there is a woman who has several children who ask her who she loves the best. Finally one day her child asks her and she asks the child what their favorite color is, and they reply, "Purple". She then says to them, "I love you the purplest." Then her next child comes to her and asks her if she loves them the best, and she asks them what their favorite color is and they say "blue". She says to them, "I love you the bluest". I really want to go buy this book because it is exactly what I feel as a mother and I'm sure what most mothers feel about their children. They don't love one child more than another child, they love each child differently - or in their own way - because each child is different.
This reminded me of a family reunion I went to two years ago. At this reunion, my cousin got up and was talking about our grandfather. In the story she was telling, as a side note she mentioned that she had always felt like she was our Grandfather's favorite grandchild. I had to chuckle when I heard her say that, because I remember that as a teenager I felt like I was my grandfather's favorite grandchild. My family was the only one who lived far away. All the rest of my mother's sisters and her brother lived in the same area as my grandparents. I used to think that maybe the reason my grandfather loved me the most is because he didn't get to see me that often and "absence makes the heart grow fonder." One summer when I was there, my grandfather came to me and made me promise him that I would marry in the temple. Well, when I got married I didn't marry in the temple, and I married a non-member. My mom told me that when Grandpa heard I was getting married he said told my grandmother that he was going to go to the wedding. She told him that their car was too old and he was too old to drive that far, but he kept insisting that he was going to go. Well, he didn't go, but I remember how I felt when I heard that and it added to my feeling of being the favorite. My grandfather never said to me, "You are my favorite grandchild." I guess what he said to me in his actions was, "I love you the purplest!"
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I like that. It always bothers me when parents label their children. If they say, for example, that "child 1" is the athletic one, it makes the child feel that no one else can be the athletic one. I think we need to look at each other more as strangers thrown in to the same family than as genetically similar people.
Hey I created a blog so I could finally comment. You know I'm you're favorite child - good cover up though! ;) j/k
I like that story, but I have to confess that I always felt like I was Grandpa's least favorite grandchild, and I am not kidding about this.
And Amber, you should e-mail us your blog site!
I have to make a correction. The mom doesn't ask about the kids' favorite color. She tells one of her kids that she loves him the bluest and compares it to all kinds of things like a dragonfly etc. And she tells the other child that she loves him the reddest and compares it to a campfire, a leopards eye etc. Purple is never mentioned in the book but the meaning of that is that blue and red mixed together make purple. Which explains that the moral is that she loves both of them equally but in different ways.
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