When the love of your life drops dead, Valentine’s Day looks different. Its evolution is a bit like grief. At first, it’s sad. Then angry. Then sad. Then depressed. Then sad. Then accepting. Then, eventually, meh. It’s Valentine’s Day.
The three a.m. wake up and worry about the world last eve ended up reflective. Women of a certain age, well, that’s a lot of Valentine’s Days.
Remember grade school and those damn Valentine’s boxes. Those of us who could never get the construction paper to enclose the box just right with taut corners found that day frustrating. Mine always ended up looking like a gift wrapped by the dinosaur whose arms couldn’t quite make it to the project and all the baubles were taken because I took too long on the construction paper part. Oh my, suddenly I’m back in second grade fighting back tears and the perfection of Paula Caldwell whose box was covered in perfectly shaped hearts and messages of love.
The February Day of Love was pure torture in middle and high school for those of us sporting braces, frizzy hair, and strict parents. God forbid, Valentine’s Day fell on Ash Wednesday (like this year–yes today, all my Catholic girls), and your mom ensured you went to school, late, with ashes on your forehead. Some of us were, indeed, rare beauties in the suburbs of Chicago.
Enter The Norwegian, the most romantic guy to inhabit Earth. Valentine’s Day before children featured French restaurants, travel, music, flowers, and chocolates. After the children, I ensured the proper materials for their Valentine boxes and aided in expert corner wrappage. Treats for classmates and parties dot the history. And then he dies. He took the romance with him. Asshat.
Broken hearts don’t heal. They self-shallac over the broken parts so no one can see. And then a miracle happens.
Small people with tiny hands join the fray. They look at you like you hung the moon. They scream, “Mémé” at the top of their lungs when they see you and run for your arms to catch them.
This Valentine’s Day, I will knock on the door of Oldest Chicken’s house and hear little feet racing across the wood floor, screaming. The sweetest of sounds, it’s the sound of love, unabashed, not yet taught embarrassment by the world. And what a two-year-old can’t know is the healing power of that adoration. Like the Grinch, my heart will grow two sizes and the break won’t feel nearly as deep.
Happy Valentine’s Day Dolls.
The Duchess Diaries 