Patch Blog: What Does Valentine's Day Mean to You?

Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is a holiday observed on February 14 honoring one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine. It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting
cards (known as "valentines"). --Wikipedia

I gave this day much thought.  Earlier in my relationship (8 months into it) with my long-suffering husband of 32 years, we broke up on Valentine’s Day, but to be honest it was my fault. I had another boyfriend and I had to choose.

Hence, I'm really not a fan of Valentine's Day.  I always suspected this day is a day to make all the flower shops and candy stores and the greeting card companies boost their sales. That’s the cynic in me. 

I would like to share what my Valentine, whose name is David means to me.  He’s a quiet man and very practical and has an amazing sense of humor.  He’s extremely smart.  He’s my hero. He doesn’t just lavish and woo me with love one special day per year; he really is a Valentine almost every day. 

When I think about love and the ways it shown, it doesn’t have to be a card or flowers or candy (Lord knows I don’t need the Sees, ok?).  This man makes coffee every night before we go to bed and he gets up daily and knows what a grump I am without my first cup of Java. I’m horrible without that first sip of caffeine. He knows this, but sure enough every single morning, faithfully he brings me my
coffee. 

He does all these special little things that may go unnoticed by others, but they surely do not go unnoticed by me. I had to take a test recently in Los Angeles next door to LAX. He knew I was preparing for this test. I’m not a good test taker.  He knows this about me.  He offers last night to quiz me and I knew he was tired. I could see he was starting to fall asleep while I was contemplating my answers. He said he was going to go with me to help test me on the way to the test.

He could have stayed home. I urged him to stay home, but he didn’t want me to go alone. He even went into the testing room area with me to make sure I didn’t need anything I had forgotten, which I did. I forgot my driver’s license in the car and he went back to get it for me and then waited.

People, this is love. This is true love. It’s not perfect because we are not perfect, but it beats the material things you get once per year. Sometimes you just get lucky and I swear I don’t know how it happened to me, but as I write this now, I’m overwhelmed at just how lucky I got 33 years ago at a gas station in Monrovia. I’m still in love. I think I chose wisely!!!!!