I was in second grade when I first heard about Valentine's day. I'm not sure why it didn't resonate with me in first grade, but Mrs. Steffey, my second grade teacher was very big on holidays and explained the origins, customs, and related hoopla to us. Mind you, we were seven or eight years old and not everything got through to us on a permanent basis, but enough did that I always thought it was a neat celebration, if only for the fact that we pretended to have mailboxes on our desks, and on Valentine's Day, those were filled with colorful Valentines Day, mail which was something I never got at home being the age I was.
The second reason I loved Valentine's Day was candy. I have loved those little hearts with the mushy words on them for more than fifty years. The fact that no one at our house ever talked that way even in jest made reading such things, especially on candy, all the more exciting. I would read things like "Sweetie Pie" and "Oh, You Kid" and "Darling" on a little heart and then pop it into my mouth trying to understand it all. Such drama! Such luxury!
As I grew older, I realized that some people really went all out for Valentine's Day. Men took their wives out to dinner. People sent each other bouquets of flowers and entire boxes of chocolates. Knowing this made me long for more, for bigger, for flashier, and for the kind of love that thought of others that way.
In fourth grade, I raised my hand high when Mrs. Picard our teacher asked who would like to help plan the Valentine's Day party for the class. Who wouldn't? This was the rooster of my holiday obsessions coming home to roost. Our little committee met and decided on the games to play, decorations, which mothers to ask for to bring treats (by then we knew the ones that went all out for school parties) and how we were going to pass out our valentines.
Another girl and I were in charge of making a giant decorated mailbox. We used a large cardboard box which we covered with elegant heart and cupid gift wrap leaving a slit for the valentines to be deposited anytime the week leading up to Valentine's Day. I also was charged with making a decoration for the table that held the Valentines Mailbox. I was thrilled that I was chosen even though I hadn't a clue what I would make.
Stopping off at the public library after school, I dug my way through books about holidays in the children's section of the library. Most of what I found there was pretty sappy but by the time I went home that night, I had an idea of what I wanted to do.
Of course, when I told my mother, she told me it was a stupid idea. My dad just looked at me when I explained it to him, but I didn't hold that against him because his mind was always a light year or two away, and he rarely heard anything I said. My little sisters were so little as to be insignificant. My older sister said I was childish. I was on my own.
My centerpiece was based upon an idea I had seen in a magazine once in the doctor's office. It was also based on the many cakes I had seen my mother decorate for birthdays and other special occaisions. My mother knew her way around a pastry bag. Give her some frosting and she was the Picasso of cake decorating. The Campbell Street "Cake Boss," if you will.
I wanted to make a cake that would be the flowing skirt of a beautiful woman, highly decorated with frosting flowers and ribbons of various shades of pink and red, and, of course, hearts. Her hat would be frosting. The bodice of her dress would be frosting. Everything she wore would be completely edible. I salivated at the thought.
Once my mother saw the drawn plans I had made, the recipes I had pulled from her Woman's Home Companion cookbook, and the naked doll I had purchased from Harvey's Dimestore for ninety-nine cents to stick into my cake, she could no longer say that my idea was stupid. I had laid it all out in careful detail. What I needed was help with the oven and some skilled hands at baking and decorating to assist me. All week I discussed with my mother how to make the flowers and lace on the doll and her flowing skirt.
When the day to make the cake arrived I was almost giddy with anticipation. Now I would see my drawing take shape. No no one could say it was stupid. It would be fantastic. I knew it.
We used a large stainless steel bowl to bake the cake in. Inverted, it was as elegant a shape for a flowing ball gown as one could ask for. When it cooled, we stuck the ten inch fashion doll into the center, and then we went to town frosting and decorating. It was a wonder to behold. It was a doll. It was a cake. It was a centerpiece. I was so proud of it, and when I carried it to school for the Valentine's day party, I prayed I wouldn't trip and fall face down into it the way the Three Stooges would have done.
The cake and I arrived in one piece. The party was a great success. For a fourth grader, I achieved a momentary amount of fame and adulation, and the cake was mine to take home that afternoon to then share with my family.
So what does all this have to do with Gary being my valentine? Gary is and will always be my valentine, my heart's true love, the joy of my life, and the only man I will ever adore because he makes every day become for me just like the time I made that cake.
He allows me to dream big. He never laughs at me or ridicules me. He offers assistance whenever I ask for it. He takes as much pleasure in my successes as I do. If we run into a snag, he researches it to find an answer and then rolls up his sleeves to help in any way he can.
Last year I published my first book. I dedicated it to Gary. He made it possible in a million ways. He is the biggest fan of my writing in general, my blog and my novels in the making. I read everything out loud to him. His reactions and criticisms inspire me to keep on writing. A lot of what I write is meant to be humorous. When Gary laughs til he cries and almost falls out of his chair, I know I have hit the mark.
I have many beautiful, well-planned gardens in our yard on Campbell Street. Gary never questions when I have an idea to dig up this or that, or try something exotic or new. He looks at my garden designs on paper and believes I know what I am doing. When I fill the car with annuals or buy a pound of seeds online, his support makes me all the more certain the new garden will be beautiful.
Two summers ago I gave our granddaughters Cassie and Sami one hundred dollars for paint and supplies at Ace Hardware and carte blanche to paint an original mural on the back of our two car garage. Gary watched with pride as an enchanted garden appeared to the delight and wonder of our family and friends. He never doubted the idea or their ability. Their mural is a thing of beauty and a memory for all of us as we look back on those days when they were perched on ladders and creating sky and trees and flowers and a few surprises for the visually alert.
We have eight grandchildren. Even though money is tight because we now have just one income, Gary cheerfully plans with me for birthday gifts, for our children's anniversary gifts, for Christmas and Easter and Valentine's day, for extended family birthday and anniversary gifts and for what-have-you gifts to let our family know we are thinking about them. Never once has Gary chided me for spending our money on others.
I send a check to the food pantry every month. We have provided as many as eight hundred forty meals in one month. Gary embraces my need to help others because he has a giving and generous heart.
Nearly three years ago when my elderly mother fell and it became apparant to all of the family that she would need full time personal care, Gary supported me as I reorganized her home to make her a two room suite with a new bathroom and to turn her back room into a piano studio so I could work from home and be with her all the time. It seemed an impossible task, but Gary believed in my ability to conceptualize and organize the transformation of these old rooms into something bright and functional.
And when it became obvious that I couldn't handle teaching piano at home and caring alone for the ever expanding needs of my mother, Gary quit his job and stayed home to at first help me care for her, and then later to take over as her personal caregiver, doing things for my mother that no one else in our family could or would do.
Today he works fourteen to sixteen hour days, seven days a week caring for my ninety-two year old mother who, several strokes and one broken leg later, cannot walk or stand or rise from a chair, who requires someone to dress her, to help her use the bathroom, and who literally needs help with everything except feeding herself and using her TV remote and telephone. He hasn't had a day off in ten months.
He never complains. He does yard work in the summer and removes snow in the winter. He is available to fill in as extra driver for our daughter's family when needed. If someone calls and asks for his help, if it is humanly possible, he will.
At the end of what always is an exhausting and sometimes thankless day of work, he enjoys the hour or two we have together reading or watching a video or talking with our children or grandchildren on the phone or via the internet. He always is cheerful. He always is kind. He always is thoughtful. He always chooses to think positively and to think the best of people
And every single night, when the lights finally go out and our weary heads hit the pillow, he reaches for my hand and says, "Good-nite, Beautiful" to me. That's why Gary is my Valentine.
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