When I was an energetic young mother, I'd get up at the crack of dawn on Valentine's Day to decorate the breakfast table. I had cards and little chocolate candies waiting for my kids before they went off to school. Some years, their lunches had a note or a sandwich cut with a heart-shaped cookie cutter.
This year, I started my morning by helping the Daughter cut and glue verses about love onto bright pink paper. It's part of decorating her classroom, which she worked on late into the night. Red twirly streamers, bright red table cloths, heart doilies pasted all over the room.
Even at my age, I can barely get enough of it.
I remember walking home from school, each February, transfixed by the big chocolate heart boxes stationed prominently in the department store windows. It wasn't the chocolate that got my attention. I've never been that big on candy. It was the idea that someone would actually buy you a big, padded, scrolly, lace-encrusted heart and bring it to your doorstep. Surely, if this wasn't romance, what was?
My father usually always brought my mother a big decorated heart, filled with chocolate. As romantic as this might have seemed, I knew, even then, that it did little more than fulfill an obligation. My parents wedding anniversary was February 7th. My father promptly changed it to Valentine's Day and once he came through with the chocolate heart, he considered his holiday responsibilities fulfilled for another calendar year.
Sometimes, the whole family would go out to dinner in celebration of the big event. This would usually end in a fight, with my father screaming and yelling, and my mother cowering, and sometimes the heart tossed across the room.
Ah, memories.
Mom certainly did her part to keep the Valentine spirit alive--with me anyway. I remember being four or five when she first taught me how to cut a heart out of paper with pinking shears. Mom was way ahead of the crafts curve. She'd snip and fold and glue from scraps of this-and-that, in a way that would have made Martha Stewart proud. She'd fold a red paper in half, trace a c-shape, trim it and open it to reveal the perfect heart.
I thought it was magic.
She was also the one who taught me about the Valentine's Box.
When my mom was a kid, there was no money for frills. So, she remembered, with great delight, finding and decorating just the perfect shoebox. Little snips of crepe paper, paper hearts, and foil created a little jewel box, where her school friends could post their valentines to her.
By the time I got to second grade, I had been hearing about the creation of these magical places for years. I fairly quivered with delight when the teacher broke out the glue and supplies a few days before The Big Event. I realize now, that there were a lot of things about school I didn't understand back then. But, this? Piece of cake!
I sailed through the middle of each February in nothing less than a full trance.
Mom never did prepare me for the fact that certain kids got all the valentines and some got none. In the days before PC behavior, it wasn't a cardinal rule that you brought valentines for all your classmates. Since then, of course, many tender little feelings have been salvaged through the distribution of valentines en masse. Still, I must testify that there was something to be said for the old system. It was clean and raw and honest.
Sure, you were crushed when the boy you liked gave you nothing, then, gave three valentines to the little blonde girl who sat next to you. Just as you were shocked when crushes you didn't know existed came out of the woodwork that day, via huge paper doilies, hung together with glitter and paste.
Valentines Day was one of the few times you knew where you stood. There it was. All the cards were on the table, (no pun intended.) Times like that are rare in life, and there was something about kids laying their feelings wide-open, for all to see, that I still find mesmerizing.
But, I digress.
One of the other things my mom taught me was The Valentine Song.
Today, when Daughter left for school with valentines and candy in tow for her kindergarteners, I reminded her.
"Oh! The Song!" she said, "that would be so perfect to teach them! I'm sure they've never heard it!"
Few people under the age of 80 have.
"Valentine, Valentine
Will you be my valentine?
Valentine, Valentine
I'll be yours if you be mine."
This morning, when I go see my mom, I'll take her a small heart shaped box of candy and a cuddly white bear. She seems to love stuffed animals now--though she never really liked them before. I'll tell her how I remember her teaching me to cut paper hearts, and I'll sing her the song.
And I know she'll remember, because my friend Kathleen, who directs the facility where my mom lives, says prayers and songs are the last things to leave our memories.
Happy Valentine's Day.
1 comment:
Sweet words, Margot!
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