Love you more

So after having a bad night last night today has been full of signs. So many that I can't even remember them all. But one thing I have realized is that a certain phrase keeps popping up and I know it's him. But the thing is it's something he didn't say to me but to his daughter. So many things had damaged his views on relationship and love. He didn't believe he could ever love again after his divorce and a few other failed relationships. He was always looking for or expecting to find the same thing he had with his ex-wife. To me she was his first love, but I think it was very superficial. Don't get me wrong I know that he loved her, especially because she was the mother of the most important thing in his life. I tired so many times to explain to him that every love is going to be different. He wasn't going to love me the same way he did her. And in the first few years of our relationship he would say "I love you", I can remember the first time we lived together I wasn't working but he was and every morning i'd still be in bed when he left and he would come give me a kiss and tell me bye and say i love you. But actions speak louder than words. For a while it really bugged me, but then I started  to realize that it wasn't about what he was saying but what he was doing. He showed me he loved me constantly. It wasn't like other relationships where the "I love you"s are forced and overused and the actions told a different story. Once we moved in together last year I told him I loved him every morning and every night, at the least. It just came naturally for me, but it didn't for him. But in the last few months of his life he started to say it when I'd leave for work in the morning, and he wouldn't even realize he said it. It wasn't forced and to me was more meaningful than it ever could have been. I do wish I had heard it more and he knows that. 
So, he would always say "love you more" to his daughter and always signed her cards that way. Soon after his passing I was looking through some of my stepdaughter's things and found a postcard sized piece of paper with "love you more, Daddy" that was the only thing on it. We use to put notes in the kids backpacks every once in a while and this was one that he had put in her's last year. I pulled it out and gave it to her aunt and uncle, because if everything else was lost that would be ok, but nothing can happen to this piece of paper. This will be the most important piece of paper, especially when she's older. So in the last week or so that phrase "love you more" keeps popping up EVERYWHERE! At least once this morning it popped up and then on my lunch break I was in Marshalls looking at rugs when I looked over at their wall with all the pictures and wall hangings. There right in the middle was a white canvas with black lettering; "Love you more". I couldn't help but smile and say "I love you too". That was when I realized it was him. :)