My Funny Valentine(s)

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” I John 4:7

This past Valentine’s weekend was one of much joy for me. Starting on Friday with a long walk in the snow with Martin then followed on Saturday and Sunday with an overnight trip to Tuscaloosa with both Martin and Joe, I could not have planned a better way to celebrate. The laugher and love we shared this weekend was an unbelievable lift to my soul. Sharing time with these two beautiful, funny men brought a ray of light into a dismal winter season. To be so loved, I find an amazing gift which I doubt I will ever deserve.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach” those beautiful words written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning are in a book of sonnets given to me one day years ago by a Valentine. A lost Valentine once told me that all he wished for in life was to wake up next to me each day. Another Valentine of mine once compared our love to Mercer’s “Midnight Sun”. While yet another one told me that I held his heart in my hand to do with as I will. All very lofty and scary ideals to live up to…

I have had very few Valentines in my life. Perhaps it is the intense fear of being responsible for someone else’s heart that has kept me all my life from opening up my own heart. I have certainly given my heart on occasion, but to only a very few whom I have trusted completely to protect it. Still I wonder how any of those who have given me their heart would take that chance with me? Once my love is given it endures forever, yet still I seem to constantly hurt those I love. If only love were enough to make people happy.

In the Bible, John teaches us to ‘love one another’. That sentiment is often times impossible to follow. Still throughout my life I have found a few people to whom I freely gave my love. Those people, those friends, those Valentines…they are what makes my life worth living!