This is Valentines Day, a day for celebrating relationships. Poor old Saint Valentine or Valentinus became beatified after losing his head to the emperor Claudius II for not renouncing his Christian faith.
He was credited with the miracle of having restored sight to the daughter of a district judge and having sent her a note "from your Valentine" just before his execution. Later association with the Roman Cupid and the February fertility (whoopee) festival of Lupercalia didn't happen until some time later but who's counting?
Today you pay attention to relationships – the special one and the others that ground your life. You don't have to write sonnets or hire skywriters or strum your mandolin under a balcony to make the day special for those special people. A simple "Thank you" for their being in your life will mean a lot.
To all of the people in our life, thank you.
We posted a note saying Beverly had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and your response was immediate and supportive. So many of you wrote from experience; all advised we keep living lives to the fullest and offered whatever support you could. The contact alone was support. Thank you.
And after reading your posts and emails for a week now, we come away with this Valentine's Day assurance:
Our world is full of compassionate people.
Alzheimer's disease doesn't incapacitate overnight.
We can live today as fully as possible.
We will. (It is so a transitive verb).
My project on this morning before VD (oops) is to shuffle down the hallway to the apartment lobby and plaster the walls by the elevator with valentine cutouts with many of my poems from past Feb. 14s glued to them. Shhh, don't tell her. Here's this year's.
Elder Valentine
I think this year I'd like to get
an elder Valentine:
from one whose hugs are long enough
to spark recall of passion
without demanding lust,
a hand that trembles into mine
remembering delight,
some slightly-off trajectory
to synchronize the course
of lips, in consummation
of a promise firm in force.
We look with older, wiser gaze
on futures in the mist.
But where wisdom cautions certainty
commitment will insist,
we have blessings heaped on blessings
where both our hearts align,
so be now and for eternity
my Elder Valentine.
And the rest of you Elders and Youngers, go buy some chocolate and flowers for your Sweetie. Tempus fugit.