An Offering of Faded Flowers

Valentine's Day is here again. We bring to it our hopes, our wishes, our dreams of a world lit by love.
Some visualize candlelit dinners, soft music, foreheads almost touching as sweet promises are whispered. Others scrub glue onto paper bags, affixing stickers and paper hearts chopped from construction paper, anticipating them stuffed with bundles of valentines, imagining delighted smiles as their own offerings are received. Somewhere a parent carefully places one more bud on the iced cake, while cross-referencing one last time ingredients with known allergies in their child's class. Everything must be perfect for this joyful day of hearts, flowers, and the celebration of love.

When the party is over, the stickiness and crumbs addressed, the bits and scraps of cupids and bows brushed away, do you see that child, shoulders hunched, clutching the heavy tin they came in with, still packed? Is that their empty paper bag, crumpled in the recycling bin? Can that be one of the valentines they made, to all their best friends forever, now a little bent, tracked and damp on the hallway floor?

The sandwiches were proudly borne from desk to desk, an offering, but everyone was too full, eyes on the curling crusts, a little dry. Elsewhere in the room, a crayon-caked card dropped to the floor, as the eyes turned away. 

One child's valentine bag was not stuffed like the others; it remains flat, a little crumpled.

May I have a sandwich to take home, maybe an extra? They do look good. You put a lot of effort into this card; you thought of me, thank you. Here is one for you; it is, after all, Valentine's Day.

Perhaps if they learn these things, they will grow up to be like him:

He wanted a gift for me, but we were there on Fixed Income, with vouchers and service vans to the chemo centre, and no budget for roses. But there was a shawl display in the Dollar Store, in deep burgundy or teal blue, one for his daughter and one for me. First choice to me, he said with quiet dignity.

Eleven months ago, I wrapped the deep burgundy shawl about my shoulders one last time. I huddled in a chair and played all the music from the International Tattoo of 2011, the one he worked with the Canadian Rangers. I studied the pictures, and marked the time of the service, the eulogy, the burial.

Today, I want to see his Valentine's Day greeting on Messenger, never fancy or ornate, but "Happy Valentine's Day, I love you" said it all. I long to look, but then I must also see our last chats, just after we knew, and the message he didn't see. 

There are many bearers of one last message, unread, many wrapped in Dollar Store Shawls, more precious than mink. And yet we smile this day, just like the happy people. 

For we have been loved and are still loved.

When the wine is consumed, the dessert lingered over, the candles extinguished, and night has closed in, when the afterglow of romance has faded, will there still be flowers? Will there be glamour and a little mystery, not roses perhaps but, just possibly, a faded bouquet, an offering beyond price?

Happy Valentine's Day. All love is precious. All love is beyond price.




 

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