What color is love?
I want to talk about the power of color. You can, of course, Google the psychology of color and read what researchers have discovered about how everyone from advertisers to athletes use color to improve sales, create loyalty, enhance mood, and boost performance. My discovery about the power of color is from personal experience.
I was four years old when my grandmother asked me what my favorite color was. I hadn’t thought about it consciously prior to that moment because no one had asked me the question. I answered immediately with, “Lavender.” Not purple. Not pink. Not a muddled version of the two. Lavender.
From that moment until the month she died, everything my grandmother made for me or gave me was lavender. It began with clothing. She was a spectacular seamstress and on Christmas and Easter she made each of her granddaughters matching outfits. At Easter, like eggs in a basket, we were in the same pattern but each a different pastel color. Mine was always lavender. There was a lavender princess robe she made for my third birthday. She swapped white birthday card envelops for lavender ones right through college. She wrapped everything with lavender ribbon. She dyed my white church gloves lavender and passed along her lavender rhinestone jewelry to me. From shoelaces to a lavender swizzle stick from a night-out drink, my grandmother showered me in lavender.
My favorite memory is when I received my first communion (I was raised Catholic). It was a solo event for me due to my family moving around, and I was missing the group fun of it. After the ceremony with basically just my family, my grandmother took me aside and gave me a lavender velvet jewelers box. I opened it to find a delicate gold chain with a single white pearl dangling from a gold setting. I gasped. She said, “Every young lady must have pearls. Now you have your first. I told that jeweler I wouldn’t buy it if he didn’t get me a lavender box.”
If you ask my cousins, every one of the 15 of us would tell you, “I was grandma’s favorite.” Including me. That’s because she understood the heart of what love is: love is paying attention to whom someone else is even if they aren’t always sure themselves. My grandmother was a mindfulness pioneer long before it became a buzzword on the internet. She knew that life is in the details. That the real power of love is paying attention on purpose, noticing, and turning the noticing in to an action.
She showed her love for me in other details as well, from dressing me up with fancy hair to guarding the last of the strawberries from my cousins because she knew they were my favorite. My grandmother taught me what love felt like and how simple and powerful it is to convey love to anyone just by paying attention to the details of who they are.
Grandma was dying of cancer in California by the time I graduated from college. I moved to Boston and she came to visit me that October and although we did not speak of it, we both knew it would be the last one. Our final exchange was in February, through Valentine’s Day cards. I sent her a large, Victorian-style card with a long letter expressing all the ways she had made me feel loved and all the life-lessons she had taught me. The card reminded me of her. She sent me a card as well—one more time wrapping her love in a lavender envelop.
She died 2 weeks after Valentine’s Day. When I arrived at her home a few days before the funeral, my aunts and uncles were there. Her house was spotless and uncluttered as always. I gazed at the familiar living room and my breath caught when I noticed the Valentine’s card I had sent her standing upright on a table by the couch. My Aunt Penny put her arm around me and said, “She refused to let me put that card away. She said it reminded her of you.” My tears flowed. I was certain she left the card out on purpose, to tell me one more time just how much she loved me and always would. One more detail, one more thoughtful moment about me, even as she was dying.
My grandparents, Frank and Virginia Sobrero
I still have the lavender princess robe she made me. It is a symbol of love. It evokes a deeply rich and emotional response in my heart. In a brief glance, it floods my body with the profound, energizing love my grandmother showered on me through a color—lavender.
Kids can practice noticing how color makes them feel by listening to the Kids Super Journal Podcast, Mindfully boost your wellbeing with color, Season 2, episode 2 at www.kidssuperjournal.com/listen or on your favorite podcast app!
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