I
wanted to write something special for
Valentine’s Day, and decided to use the story of Saint Valentine as a
clever lead-in
to the article until my research revealed the following:
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"From Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia:
Saint Valentine or Saint Valentinus refers to one of at
least three martyredsaints
of ancient Rome.
The feast of Saint Valentine was formerly celebrated on February 14
by the Roman
Catholic Church until the revised
calendar 1969.
His birth date and
birthplace are unknown. The feast of
St. Valentine was first decreed in 496 by Pope Gelasius I,
who included Valentine among
those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts
are
known only to God." The creation of the feast for such dimly conceived
figures may have been an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia
that was still being celebrated in fifth century Rome, on February 15.
As Gelasius implied, nothing is known about the lives of any of these
martyrs.
Many of the current legends surrounding them were invented in the late Middle Ages
in France
and England,
when the feast day of February 14
became associated with romantic love.”
Clearly
this would not do anymore than my
standard second lead-in, which is to relate the article to a personal
experience of my own.
My
first wife asked me for a divorce in a
valentine on Valentine’s Day. Don’t misunderstand, its not that ‘J’ is
unkind,
its just that she is frugal and could save herself the stamp of a
separate
mailing; at the time 17 cents if I recall.
My
second wife, married for less than three
months, cheated on me on Valentine’s Day with a traveling Mead paper
supply
salesman. I am sure that ‘L’ didn’t mean to be unkind either. She is
industrious and we were after all poor newly-weds’ and critically low
on office
supplies.
This
then left me with my third choice for
a lead-in, the root of the word itself. The name Valentine comes from the Latin
word ‘valor’,
meaning ‘worthy’.
At
first glance I struggled with
the idea of ‘worthy’ as much as I did my first two choices. Arguably
everyone
is worthy of love, certainly those in our closest circle including our
parents,
spouse, children, friends, cousins, aunts and uncles and so on, and
literally
every religion or belief system in the world speaks of love toward your
creator, neighbor, and self, not to mention the blade of grass I
stepped on
while walking my dog, whom I do love dearly and who will get a
valentine shaped
steak from me on February 14th; but I can hardly cram all of
this
love fest into one designated day. Surely there is another meaning or
purpose
to this day of commemoration.
Traditionally
we celebrate
Valentine’s Day with the obligatory card, a box of mediocre chocolates,
and the
‘I could kill myself boring’ red roses, all culminating in dinner with
our
significant other at a restaurant just a smidge above a Denny’s to mark
the importance
of the occasion, and to demonstrate to the person sitting across from
us that
they have been deemed worthy of our affection.
It’s
all so clinical,
predictable, and insincere, and the price for this disingenuous
carnival of
love will come in at about $80.00; or in my case worthiness measured up
to a
first class stamp, and a jumbo box of number 2 pencils.
In
truth, at the time that is
probably all my love was worth, and that is when I remembered something
someone
once said to me;“In the end we won’t be
measured by how much we loved others, but by how much others loved us.”
I think there is some truth in this premise.
Every day we have opportunities to demonstrate our love to those whose
lives we
touch, even if only in passing with a warm smile or kind gesture toward
a
stranger. It does not much matter so long as the sentiment is honest
and sincere.
Valentine’s
Day is not a
celebration of our love for others, it is a celebration to recognize
and honor
those who gave of themselves against their own best interest, a
celebration of
their love for us.
This
Valentine’s Day when I am
sitting across from my significant other I will no doubt tell her how
much I
love her too, but more importantly, I will confess that I am aware of
how
difficult I am, and of my faults too many to count, and that in spite
of my
shortcomings I am grateful and mystified that she somehow finds me
worthy of
her love. Then I will take her hand into mine, look into her eyes, drop
to my
knees, and thank her.
Well
actually, this Valentine’s
Day I will be practicing on my dog while serving him that steak and
wiping
drool from his little Pug face, but I am confident my day will come. I
know it
in my heart.
Until
then, from my desktop to
yours, Happy Valentine’s Day, and God bless those who love us.
