HEARTS OR FLOWERS?

February 14.  Valentine's Day.

For most of my younger life, I looked forward Valentine's Day as a day to send my friends cards with hearts on them.  Ah, the joy of a classroom filled with children, brown paper lunch bags decorated with hearts or doily hearts and filled with so many little envelopes with valentines inside, and the Valentine party in the afternoon.  Ah, the cupcakes, the red punch....do children still have those pleasures these days?  I remember I would look at my valentines over and over and over for days afterwards.

Fast forward to February 14, 1981, a Saturday night.  The Husband and I were "celebrating" the special day here at home with Italian food and a game.  I, two weeks away from my little one's due date, sat in one chair, he in the other with a table between....maybe it was Scrabble we played.  I wasn't feeling so perky that day.  Rightly so as the next day at noon, The Baby Girl arrived in the world.  After that, our celebrations kind of got prioritized a bit differently.

Here we are 32 years later, wishing each other greetings of the day as The Husband left for work this morning.  By mutual agreement, that will be enough celebration.  We've passed that hearts and flowers stage.  If you are still there, congratulations!  I'm happy for you.  It's all about what makes one happy.

As I began the turnaround to where the day was less important, I read a commentary in the local newspaper.  This was probably 20 years ago or so.  It was written by a wise woman named Judy Elliott and titled "More than Hearts and Flowers".  I want to quote her a bit in this article because, yes, I still have the copy and amazingly enough, I know where it is.  Here's some of her wise words that spoke to me:

"The 14th of February fell a week to the day after I married.  I rushed home from my teaching job, threw a clean cloth on a card table, tied red streamers on my new husband's chair and popped up an 8 x 10 Valentine by his plate.  Then I waited for him to burst through the door, a bouquet of red roses in his arms.  I threw together a heart-shaped chocolate cake from a mix and squirted red icing on the top.  Newly-wed dessert with high expectations.

Finally, my groom showed up, a little late, but worth the wait I told myself.  He took one look at the table and blanched white.  He had forgotten it was Valentine's Day.  No card.  No flowers. No candy.  I was crushed.  He tried making polite conversation but I wasn't having any part of it.  I dished up his dinner like it was prison food, plopped down in my folding chair and answered his "What's wrong?" question with all the maturity of a 22 year old bride.  "Nothing,"  I sniffled.  "Absolutely nothing."  I pouted for three days, played the martyr and made both of us miserable..........

.....Seven years went by before, walking a sick baby in the night, I realized it was Cupid's day and I had forgotten to get him a valentine.  It was his chance to whine, but he didn't.   By then we were way past a candlelight dinner...I was scrubbing Gerber's oatmeal off the kitchen floor and he was taking his turn folding diapers.  If he had brought flowers home, I would have had a sinking spell, knowing we needed the money to pay the pediatrician.......

....The same fella who forgot to remember me with a card on our first Valentine's Day together turned out to be a man who saw me through my mother's final illness and never left my side at her funeral.  He rocked babies with earaches and drove carpools to Brownie meetings.  All told, he probably spent four years of his life sitting on bleachers, watching swim meets and tennis matches.  And when I had an operation, he stretched out on the uncomfortable chair by my bed and stayed at the hospital.

He'll never surprise me with a diamond ring in a box of Cracker Jacks...and he's yet to mention I can no longer fit into a size 8 dress.  I'm a slow learner, but I finally realized it takes more than chocolate, valentines or roses to take care of the heart."

I think Judy Elliott said it well and described my feelings totally.  I am truly blessed to have a jewel of a valentine like that in The Husband and I recognize that blessing.

And more importantly, I am blessed to have the love of all loves of a heavenly Father daily and forever.

Amen.