In less than a month it will be four years that you’ve been gone. Our last Valentine’s Day together came and went without giving your impending death a thought. I fixed you a wonderful meal. You brought me flowers and a little heart shaped cake. You gave me a gushy card. I love gushy cards. You knew that. You stood in the card section carefully reading each one till you found the gushiest of the gushy cards to satisfy the incurable romantic that lives within me. You were sweet that way.

I could barely breathe the first Valentine’s Day after you died. The thoughts of others still sharing this special day of love broke me. I hated lovers. I wanted to smack all the happy people holding hands and kissing. I wanted to walk between them, breaking them as I was broken. I was that insane woman walking up the street, pulling her hair and muttering and soiling herself on the bus. Only I wasn’t really. That’s just who I was on the inside. Everyone else saw a smile that was not quite connected to my eyes. They could only suspect I may be coming unwrapped.

The second Valentine’s Day was worse. I wasn’t protected by the fog anymore. I was openly bitter and angry. Fewer people looked me in the eye. Alone. Alone, alone, alone. My daughter, in her innocence, asked, “Aren’t you over this? It’s been two years?” Oh…she had no idea what she was saying. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

This is the third Valentine’s Day since your untimely exit. It’s better. Infinitely better. And, like CS Lewis in A Grief Observed, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear”. Like Mr. Lewis, I was not afraid. I just had every sensation that fear gives you. The fear has subsided and left me with a sensation that I’ve misplaced something important. Like the dreams new mothers have that they can’t remember where they put the baby, I feel like I left you on the back seat of a taxi in a crowded city. There’s no getting you back…no lost and found in which I might rummage, looking for that shock of silver hair that would let me know it was you. No…I have resigned myself to the finality. And I’ve turned down several streets…each taking me further and further away from the house we lived in together.

This is not a sad thing anymore. Not that it’s a happy thing. It’s not that either. But I’ve found my balance. My inner gyroscope has me upright and moving in the right direction. I have joy again. I have things to look forward to. I have lots of love in my life. I have found peace in the space between you and infinity. There will be moments still when I get knocked off the high wire. I’m grateful God has a big net.

You gave me eight Valentines. That was all we were allowed. But you will always live in my heart. As a matter of fact, it is BECAUSE we loved so much that I’m willing to risk my heart again if God brings me someone. It doesn’t scare me so much anymore. I was your last love. I will always and forever be your last great love. I am so glad we had that beautiful life together.

Thank you for picking me, handsome man. It was such an honor to be your Valentine. ❤️

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭23:4‬ ‭NIV‬‬