My One And Only Valentine Celebration

Jim and I were married in April so a whole ten months passed before we celebrated our first Valentine's Day as man and wife. I'd gotten him a lovey, smoochy card and I waited to see what he would give me. We had little money so I knew it wouldn't be much--but I knew there would be something.

He didn't disappoint. First thing Valentine's morning, before I was even out of bed, he crept into the bedroom with his hands behind his back. I grinned impatiently. He thrust his hands forward, holding onto a huge heart-shaped box filled with chocolates. I was ecstatic. I LOVED chocolate candy. But mostly I loved that Jim had thought to buy it for me.

After hugs and kisses, he went off to work and I began my day as a stay-at-home wife. There were dishes to wash, clothes to fold, floors to scrub--all those things that make for a relatively tidy home. I say relatively because I'm a relatively good housekeeper. But I'm not, nor have I ever been, a June Clever.

During the day I chomped on a chocolate here and a chocolate there and another one here and another one there and....well, you get the picture. By the time Jim was home from work and the supper dishes were finished, we sat together on the couch, all snuggled up, enjoying one another's company. "Can I have some of your candy?" he asked. I replied, sheepishly, "It's all gone."

"Gone?" Jim said incredulously. "You ate two pounds of candy in one day?" I admitted my guilt. "I'm never buying you candy again," he said with a good-natured grin. "You can't resist it."  He kept his word. In the fifty-three years we were married before he passed, I never again received even one tiny bit of chocolate candy from him. Truth be told, we never celebrated another Valentine's Day with anything more than a card. And it wasn't even an edible one. Life is hard.