Messages straight from the heart

Love heart uidaodjsdsew (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Love is in the air here at the Vaneches. The past two days have brought two unexpected emotion-packed declarations.

The first noteworthy moment happened Thursday and involved Catherine — not in the way you might think.

She’d returned to ESF Camp for the end-of-summer Family Fling, two weeks after her counselor in training program ended, to say a final goodbye (until next year) to the boys and girls and she had so much fun with.

One little fellow — a 4-year-old who’d become quite attached to her, not incidentally because she could converse with him in Spanish (thank you, International School at Dundee), greeted her with a big hug and said, “I’ll miss you. Te quiero.”

Of course, it melted her heart and made her day to experience one of life’s unexpected rewards for a job well done — on the day when she snagged her learner’s permit, no less!

And yesterday, Basil was on the receiving end of some sweet nothings when Lily, the 4-year-old daughter of our former neighbors, called his cell phone to say goodnight and that she missed him.

“I love you, Mr. Basil,” she said, melting his heart (and bringing a tear to his eye. He doesn’t like to admit it, but he is a marshmallow.)

Regular readers of Pushing on a Rope will not be surprised to learn that I have had no unexpected declarations of love come my way.

No hugs. No thumbs up.

Not even a wolf whistle.

In fact, Lily’s mom called our house first last night and when I explained to Lily that Mr. Basil was out, that it was just me and Catherine at home, she said, “No, thank you.”

And then asked, “Can I talk to Cafrin?”