Why put pressure on ourselves if we happen to be single, without a partner, on February 14th?
Wait until tomorrow, buy yourself a box of chocolates on sale, and carry on.
My late husband Al and I rarely celebrated Valentine's Day. We preferred to tell each other "I love you" every day and we avoided the commercialism of Valentine's Day after our first few years of marriage.
February 14th was always special in another way, though, because it is my mom's birthday. She was a Valentine's Day baby, but she rarely celebrated it.
In our Ukrainian-Polish farm family, we didn't make a big deal about birthdays. If someone wished us a happy birthday or we received a gift of pyjamas or maybe a candy bar or - wow! - a cake, that was about it for a celebration. In fact, a celebration was unusual. As we got older, we sometimes were allowed to invite a friend to take the bus home from school and sleep over at our house. That's a celebration in itself to farm kids.
In Al's English-Irish city family, birthdays were a HUGE deal! Your birthday day was "all about you" and you didn't even have to do dishes that day! What a shock to my system.
Poor Al. His farm-kid wife never really understood this concept. It took him most of our married life to convince me that I was worth fussing over on my birthday. My kids have since taken over that burden to make me feel special, and they're doing a fine job of it.
Today, I am alone but not alone. My beautiful daughter-in-law Kelli dropped by with a lemon loaf that she knows I like, and we shared hugs and a nice visit.
I'm going for a pedicure with my youngest daughter Dani after work. It will be the first pedicure for her and we are excited. I have also connected with our son, our oldest daughter, and the other in-laws. Everyone is fine.
And in honour of love today, I put on a new shirt covered with a dragonflies pattern - a fascinating creature that reminds me of my late mom and my dear departed husband.
I hope they are dancing together in Heaven. I'm sure Al is making sure that today is all about Mom. Do they do dishes in Heaven?
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| My parents, me and Al, Al's parents in the late 1990s |
