Celebrating Love

Today is our first Valentine's Day without Mama. This time last year we were taking stuffed toys and sugar-free chocolates up to the nursing home she was in. 

I know that Valentine's Day is supposed to be for celebrating romantic love, but Mama celebrated all kinds of love every February 14th. She sent cards to her grandchildren and nieces and nephews. She made us heart-shaped bologna sandwiches for our lunch. 

The biggest (and strangest) gift I ever got from Mama on Valentine's Day was an electric typewriter my senior year in high school. I think she meant to get it for me so that I could have it for college (Daddy sold office supplies, so she got it cheap), but it came in in early February, so instead of waiting for graduation, I got it February 14th. I was getting ready for school when she walked in to my room with a huge brown box and said, "Happy Valentine's Day". I think I was even happier about such a nice gift just because it was given on a day that my Mama really loved to celebrate. The kids my age were not all that impressed, but my shorthand teacher was jealous. 

This morning, every family member currently staying in my house (husband, father, sister, brother-in-law, and son) got a card I had picked out for them weeks ago. I got a really lovely card from my husband (and a promise of a date tonight). 

I've shed a tear or two over Mama not being here, but I am glad she taught me to celebrate the love God gives us for each other - not just on February 14th, but on every day.

I hope that you all are celebrating the wonder of love today. I'm sorry that I did not get a card for every kid in our class, but I'll say it here: Happy Valentine's Day from me to you.

Genshai

Last year, Hubby and I went to a conference in San Antonio. I think we spent more time looking through all of the vendor booths than we did listening to conference speakers (oops). I don't remember why Charles ended up at the booth of this author and I didn't (I was probably exclaiming over some "pretties"), but my husband came back with two of the very same book. I thought that on our budget that was a little excessive. Turns out the guy was either giving them away or nearly giving them away. Suspiciously I wondered why he didn't value them more than that (not in my most generous frame of mind at that time). Charles was excited though. He had had a great conversation with the author and both books were autographed. We tossed them into the tote bag and kept on shopping.

When we got back to the hotel, I remember reading the beginning of the book and thinking, "hey, that is a great idea". It even made me feel somewhat generous towards my fellow human beings. After we got back home, my copy got lost in my endless stacks of "to read" books and I have no idea what Charles did with his. His "to read" stacks are often mixed in with everything from bottle tops to power tools, so I'm never sure what is going on there.

Tonight as I was reaching for a different book, I saw Charles' copy (mine is still buried where he could not have found it). Evidently he has decided to work through more of it - or at least the dog-eared page is farther back now. So I picked it up to flip through it again, wondering what it was that had made me think we needed to finish it. And I came across the passage that caught my attention before.

One Other Thought...

Charles, what I said in the last post about loving you was important. Just in case something else stupid threatens us, remind me of this...

Forever your girl,

I Promise I Loved You

Yesterday, Seth Haines challenged us to protect our marriages by declaring the truth so that we could not tell a lie later. Go read the post and the comments here. Amazing stuff and a more than worthy cause. So I'm not going to tell my whole marriage story here - my posts are already long enough without all of those details - but I am going to make a declaration of love. A declaration that will prove me wrong if I ever get dumb enough to try and tell Charles that I never loved him.

Charles, I promise I loved you.

I took Mom to see Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. How shameful was it that I, a member of the Church of Christ, had made it into my mid-30s without getting married and having children? I told Mom, "I will be a corpse before I am a bride." She laughed and loved me anyway. Neither one of us had imagined God would bring you to us.

I was just trying to get to the back door of the building we worked in. I had to pass your office. You looked up and smiled at me. God said, "this man". Well, He and I had quite a talk as I kept on walking. And for two months after that, probably. I was angry. I wanted to be the one who got to choose, not God. Let's skip all of the reasons you weren't who/what I had imagined. I told God I wanted to choose. He laughed at me. Seriously, God laughed at me. He said, "have you seen how well your choosing has worked out lately?". Fine.

"Where's The Love, Man?"

A long time ago (it seems) I had a boyfriend who wanted to talk about the word "love". I was flattered and thought that he was going to say something really romantic that would make me teary-eyed and all mushy. No such luck. I've never seemed to really attract the romantic types. Eh. Whatever.

So he says, "have you ever thought about the fact that we say that we love pizza or we love chocolate and then we say 'I love you' to each other?" Um, no, I had not thought about that. He continues, "so do I feel the same about you as I do about pizza?" Well, darlin', I'm really hoping that isn't the case, but I know that I love you even more than chocolate (at least I thought so at the time). Thought-provoking though it was, that was not my most satisfying conversation ever.