Are you still in LOVE?

Author unknown but beautiful . The other day I asked my mother, after almost 60 years of marriage: “Mom… are you still in love with Dad?” She looked at me in silence, with that expression that said, “how can I explain something you only understand with time?” She didn’t say a word. She just smiled. But when I got home, I saw she had written me this: “Sometimes you ask me if I still love him… and I smile. Not because your question is silly, but because love, after so much time, no longer looks like what you think.” It’s not butterflies. It’s not fireworks. It’s root. It’s a quiet certainty that sustains, not an emotion that shakes. It doesn’t make my heart race anymore, but it calms my soul. It doesn’t make my hands tremble, but it gives me the strength to get up every day. There are no surprises, but there are rituals. Coffee at the same time. Endless arguments about how to hang the towels. The way he silently comes closer and covers me when I sneeze. I no longer wait for flowers or letters. I wait for him to listen when my back hurts. To hold me when I break. To understand me when I can’t even understand myself. And he does. Without noise. Without movie-like promises. Simply… he’s there. Loving after a lifetime together is like having a secret language. A way of looking at each other that exists only when you’ve shared the same pain, the same weariness… and the same desire to keep going, despite everything. So yes, I am still in love. But not with the emotion of the beginning, rather with everything we have built over time. I am in love with the peace that comes from knowing that even in the storm… he remains my refuge.