Valentines: Take 1

The vase wasn’t red and there was no baby’s breath because Randy hated it, but you get the idea.

Randy and I celebrated what I considered to be our first Valentine’s Day with him in California and me in Iowa. I sent him a balloon bouquet of a dozen helium balloons that he found on his doorknob when he got home from work. When he brought them inside they nearly filled his living room.

And he sent me 6 beautiful red roses. When he called in the order they said a half dozen red roses and he said, No - 6 roses. The card that came with them said, One rose for each week - I love you. Because it would be 6 weeks before we would see each other again.

That night when I got home from school there was an email from Randy waiting for me. He told me that this was our SECOND Valentine’s Day because when we were in the 4th grade he snuck an anonymous valentine into the folder on my desk. This was back in the day when each student had to give a valentine to all the other students - it was rude not to do it, probably to keep some people from having more valentines than others. So Randy put his regular valentine, signed with his name, into my folder and then snuck in a second one - a REAL one that was meant to tell me that he loved me. But of course I didn’t know that, like I didn’t know he bought me a ring and thought of me as his girlfriend. He was just such a sweet person all his life, and I miss him so much.

That was such a special day, but for some reason I’m not crying as I write this. My guess is that next week, when Valentine’s Day is over I will break down and cry for days. It’s exhausting.