Live u.

This typo appears in my texting almost every day.

My fingers aren’t as agile as those of my children, who are able to text as rapidly as they talk. If I try to keep up with them, crazy words appear on the screen. One daughter will fire off three or four more questions before I’ve even finished answering the first one. At that point, I text “Just call me!!!”

You’d think that Iphone would self-correct the typo in question. Don’t they realize that more people are trying to say “Love u” than “Live u?”

But it gives me pause every time I see it.

Is there more of a connection between the two phrases than mere proximity of letters on a keyboard?

I love you.

I live you.

Sleuthing around in etymologies a bit, something jumps out at me. In German, the verb to live is translated as leben. To love is lieben.

The difference of one little ‘i.’

“Ich liebe dich,” my father would say to me at bedtime, a souvenir of his time in Germany during and after The War. I love you.

I remember the first time I saw each of my newborn babies.

I remember the way I felt. (The way I still feel, although I have to pretend not to be so intense.)

My heart beats with your heart.

It hurts when you hurt.

I give you my life’s breath.

You take my breath away.

I love you with every breath that I take.

With every drop of blood that runs through my body.

I would give my life for you.

Is this what incarnational Love is all about?

I live you.

I live with you. I live for you.

I live in you.

Because I love you.