Connecting with others as simple as ‘I love you’

She passes me in the parking lot as I'm on my way into PetSmart to buy doggie treats. Gotta have doggie treats, or Kelly begins to get the idea I don't love her anymore.

I can't describe the woman. I never really beheld her. I know she was a she. I remember she was talking on a cell phone. I have some fuzzy intuitive memory of her height and build, but that's it. My inner air traffic controller was wholly focused on doggie treats.

Generally I'm impatient with random Saturday errands.

But she passed within 2 feet of me, herself absorbed in a phone call. It was like listening to a radio as you slowly turn the tuner, passing for but a moment through a particular frequency. What I heard was "murmermurmermurmer I love you murmermurmermurmer."

Totally random moment. Pure blind timing. "I love you," is all I heard. And not just the words, but the song of her voice. The lilting sincerity of it. The dance of it. In my imagination, I saw a light. A smile splattered across my face like a bug hitting a windshield.

"I love you," she said to somebody, somewhere. And the world was now a better place.

The Column Fairy tapped me on the shoulder before I even got to the door of PetSmart. "I know, I know," I told the Column Fairy. "Save your breath, I'm way ahead of you!"

Who does the woman love?

Her mother, perhaps? In my mind I see an old woman, a breakfast nook and a cup of tea. She's wearing a housecoat. And her daughter has called. They chat and pass time. The daughter says, "I love you," and the old woman smiles spontaneously. Even blushes.

Or maybe she was talking to her 13-year-old daughter, home alone on a Saturday morning while her mother runs busy errands that make modern middle-class American life happen. Maybe this is the first time the daughter has ever been entrusted with being "home alone." The mother says, "I love you," and the daughter bathes in her mother's admiration and respect.

Or maybe she was talking to her 19-year-old son, out-of-state in his second semester of college. He was up too late last night, and all bleary-eyed and tired voice as he answers the phone. Yes, my cough is better. Yes, I'm studying. Yes, I got the cookies and the care package. No, I'm not drinking and driving. No, I don't have a girlfriend. "I love you," Mom says, and the boy's mumbling could have been, "I love you, too," but it sounds more like "whatever."

If you're a card-carrying American Boy, it's important to be patiently condescending, inconvenienced and burdened by your mother's love. Gotta keep up appearances, don't you know.

Perhaps she got a call from a girlfriend she has known since high school. The majority of high school bonds erode with time, distance and just plain life. But some childhood relationships are sacred. Impervious to time and geography and circumstance. Even unchanged by long periods of dormancy and silence. "I love you," the woman says to her BFF (Best Friends Forever), and the BFF says, "Right back atcha, girl!"

Maybe this woman was talking to her mate. Perhaps the call was prompted by the need to coordinate a busy Saturday. Or perhaps he was sleeping in, and she decided she'd gone long enough without hearing the voice of her lover and friend. Maybe she was still humming in the energy of last night's date night.

Who knows, but one thing is for sure: People who cherish great love affairs are intentional about nurturing "connectedness." Every day they wake up with some part of the brain asking and answering this question: How today will I let my mate know that I'm lucky to know him (or her) at all?

Words. Touch. Service. Solicitation. Inquiry. Attention. Interest. Who in their right mind would put such things on a budget? Or ration them, like maybe you might run out? How can "miser" be a rational response to the gift of great love? The president of the United States during global, thermonuclear exchange is not without the 45 seconds a day it takes to text, e-mail or voice mail the words "I love you."

Nobody goes to heaven and complains: "Well, it was OK I guess, but I was loved too much and too often by too many people. Sheesh, people were always telling me they loved me. If I never hear those words again it will be too soon."

See. Nobody says that.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.