Don’t worry if you haven’t picked up a little something for your honey bunny, your bestie, or your pals for Valentine’s Day. Retailers are at the ready with plenty of flowers, cards, trinkets, and jewelry in these final hours of the sweetest holiday of the year. And they’re feeling good — sales are predicted to top 23.9 billion, up nearly two billion from last year. Making this COVID-19 Valentine’s Day one of the few annual events not economically sucker-punched by the pandemic.
Y'all know I’m the empty glass woman, but I’ve always been a fan of Valentine’s Day. Probably for the same reason I love those holiday movies roundly denounced by the snobby among you. I really don’t care what you think — sometimes I just want/need to bask in the warmth of a fantasy where everything turns out OK. And what’s not to like about a once-a-year communal indulgence in candy hearts, chocolate and Hallmark’s finest sentimental greeting cards.
I once ended up in a robust discussion about Valentine’s Day. Most of the people in this particular gathering of men and women were not typically given to light topics, so I was surprised when the conversation grew intense. Pretty soon we’d divided into two groups — and not by gender, by the way. Some of the women lined up with the guys turned off by what they saw as a ridiculous nod to crass commercialism. And some of the men joined the women who were true romantics embracing the holiday as a fun and, often, beautiful way to celebrate love. Recently, Vivint, an integrated smart home automation company asked 600 Americans about their feelings about Valentine’s Day and found 70% of the men were planning to celebrate with their significant other versus 48% of women. I fondly remember the Valentine’s Day when a former beau sent me 11 long-stemmed red roses because his note said, “I was the 12th one.” Worked for me!
But I’ve come to believe that Valentine’s Day not only has a greater value beyond the hearts and flowers of it all, but has a particular value during this ongoing pandemic. With more than 900,000 American victims killed by the virus to date, there are few of us who’ve been untouched by grief or sadness. Or the byproduct of that: isolation. No better time for an embrace of agape love, a love not concerned with self, but with the care of others. After all, Valentine’s Day is not actually rooted in romantic love but in faith. St. Valentine, after whom the holiday is named, was martyred because he refused to deny Christ. I am reminded of Lucille Clifton’s poem, ”the lesson of the falling leaves,” in which she describes love as faith, faith as grace, and grace as God. There’s simply nothing like the balm that love offers in whatever form it takes.
I’m making it through these gray days of the ongoing pandemic with an intentional strategy of seeking out examples of compassion and kindness. There’s the story about the then 23-year-old architecture student John Thomas Archer who asked permission to play the piano inside Remarkable Cleanouts antique store in Norwood and got everybody in the store feeling good. The store’s owner was inspired to give him the piano. And I’m drinking in the collection of stories called, “My Unsung Hero,”gathered by the podcast Hidden Brain. The stories are of transformational acts of kindness, mostly by strangers. And I don’t know how much I’ve enjoyed the funny videos on Tik Tok, YouTube ,the viral ones, and the ones sent to me by my friends which got me laughing out loud. The prestigious Mayo Clinic has confirmed the research that shows laughter is great stress relief.
Writer Henry Miller says it best, “The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.” I’ll enjoy any flowers and candy coming my way on this Valentine’s Day 2022, but I’m also using the day to celebrate random acts of kindness, to revive some lapsed relationships, and to let the people I care about know that I care about them. If that’s not an antidote to this pandemic time, I don’t know what is.
