About My Valentine

Recently, I have read two blogs, Wondering! and Simply Coll, that described how they met their spouse. I thought that it would be a theme that I could pick up for Valentines Day, and the day has arrived. Since I have no present to obtain or give to my loved one out here in the backwoods, perhaps these few recollections will suffice.

The year was 1967. Yes, Virginia we're pretty doggone old.

It was a Friday night after Young Peoples meeting. We were all at somebody's house for some sort of a get-together. Somehow, Cuppa and I ended up beside each other. Although we had been part of the same Young People's group for some time, we had moved in different circles in this rather large group; so we had never really gotten to know one another.

We probably didn't chat a whole lot that Friday night either, it being a large crowd and all, but I do remember that the the topic of the next day's Sunday School picnic came up. Seems odd I know; there, we were, almost twenty years old , talking about a kids picnic. I had not made definite plans to go, but she had, and she thought that I should go too — more or less invited me.

As you might imagine, not a whole pile of youth attended the picnic, so it was somewhat natural that Cuppa and I would find each other and spend some time together. Mind you, I'm pretty sure that I would have hunted her down in a huge crowd, as I more or less did some time later, but that is another story.

We went off for a walk in the park. I bought her a popscicle. Hero that I am, I held her hand to help her cross a little creek by hopping from rock to rock. I don't think I let go once we got across though. I sure hope that I didn't, sure hope that I was really as smart as I thought I was at the time.

We were married within two years. We were too young. I was still in university. It was dumb. The odds were stacked, not in our favour. But it worked. Almost thirty-nine years after that Friday night and Saturday afternoon, we are still together, almost joined at the hip as it were. We're friends; we're lovers ... still that, still now.

I don't think we've ever had what others would call a fight. We're human, and we do have our misunderstandings and disagreements. Every now and then, maybe twice a year, we flatten our ears just a touch and raise our hackles just a tad. But we don't really hiss and spit, and we don't unsheathe our claws, and the fur never flies.

She's a good woman, a kind soul: compassionate, friendly, generous, and ... well, I'm no good at long lists, but you get my drift. The day will come when one of us will remain here for a while longer while the other's spirit is released from its mortal coil. The one whose lot it is to remain behind will have a lonely void that cannot be filled ... except, in part, by a lifetime of pleasant memories for which to be grateful.