Valentine’s Day

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Though I normally dislike what I call “fabricated” holidays, I find myself grateful for the love and good feelings that still prevail in the world, despite threats of war and more than two years of pandemic living. We’ve come through a lot and I’m hopeful for the future. I have a red and white stuffed dog from FAO Schwartz that my husband bought me for Valentine’s Day fifty-four years ago, six months before we got married. For obvious reasons, I named him Valentine. When I’d had Valentine less than a year, our first Samoyed chewed the heck out of him and afterwards, though I washed and dried him and tried to spiff him up a little, it was to no avail. His nose and mouth were missing and he considered himself lucky to escape with both eyes reasonably intact. Yet I didn’t feel quite the same about poor Valentine. In fact, he was put in a closet and then languished forlornly in a box in the garage for years until I remembered him this Valentine’s Day. I brought him out, brushed him off and gave him a place of honor. His survival is indicative of all the relationships that endure injury, disappointments, happiness, ups and downs, and manage to come out the other side more or less intact. I felt like bragging a little yesterday and set Valentine on the floor for a picture to post on Facebook. Poor Valentine, it wasn’t even a minute before our current dog had him in a full nelson.