Valentine's Day

Telling someone that you love them is a very intimate thing. It took a long time for me and Kevin to tell each other "I love you," even though I know that we felt it way before we said it. I think that Valentine's Day is a day when people can feel comfortable saying the most intimate words that there are without feeling vulnerable to ridicule. I don't think that I tell my family how much they mean to me and how much I depend on them to live my life day to day.

We take each other for granted. We take time for granted, thinking that there will be another day to tell someone that you love them-maybe when you aren't mad anymore, or when you are not so tired, or busy-this folly scares me because, as the old cliche goes, "tomorrow is never promised." I think about those that have lost their Valentine forever. My grandmother lost her best friend, her sister, last year around Valentine's Day. I read this poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay that makes me think of lost Valentines.

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go - so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, 'There is no memory of him here!'
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.