Nest Tuesday is Valentine’s Day, a time to celebrate love. As soon as the Christmas holidays were over, the stores blossomed with red hears and they began pushing gifts for that special someone including jewelry, boxes of chocolates and cards. Florists have a special price for roses.
Young love is the subject of songs, poems and stories. I remember the first time eighteen-year-old Kenny told me, “I love you, honey.” It was our last Saturday night date before he would begin a four-year-hitch in the navy. It took several seconds for this sunned, sixteen-year-old to respond, “I love you, too, and I’ll wait for you.” All the next day, I felt like the crooners on the radio were serenading me, especially Nat “King” Cole singing “Too Young.”
But falling in love is thrilling no matter how old you are. When my cousin, Doris, who was in her forties, asked me to be matron of honor for her marriage, she was as giddy as a young girl making plans. I was still in my twenties but, as the mother of three small children, I felt like we had switched ages. Before she met Bob, she had resigned herself to being an old maid like her aunt, who worked as a secretary. She’d even bought her own tombstone so her sister’s family wouldn’t have the expense.
Love also isn’t limited ‘one to a customer’. My friend, Joyce, who was a widow, played euchre at a senior center where she met Sid, a fellow who had lost his wife. They married so they could spend the remainder of their lives together.
There are also couples like Ken and me who are living the saying, “The most romantic love story isn’t Romeo and Juliet who died together…but Grandma and Grandpa who grew old together.”
How have you experienced love?