Sunflower Day

I've never cared for Valentine's Day. Just another consumer-driven, meaningless holiday. When I was single, it was Singles Awareness Day, a cruel way for couples to rub their mushiness in our faces. Or when I was dating, it was a way to spend too much money on flowers that died the next day and too big boxes of chocolates that ruined my lame attempts at keeping my figure. There was, however, one Valentine's Day that I won't forget. And I wasn't even in a relationship. In fact, I had just gotten out of one in the most heartbreaking way possible, so naturally, that year, SAD was a day I not only didn't look forward to, but dreaded. I was in college, spring of my junior year, living in a first-floor apartment with three other girls, two of whom were in relationships. I decided that I wasn't going to let that day bring me down. I headed out of the apartment and to the bus stop for another warm day on campus, short red hair bouncing on my almost-bare shoulders, ready to face the day. It helped that I had my PE class that day and I had to run. It helped that it was a beautiful day, that dad sent me jellybeans in the mail (with little or no mention of that day), and that I had made some great new discoveries about my own inner workings. But the clincher was when I got home after all my classes. Right outside my first-floor window, I saw that some silk sunflowers had been planted in the bushes. My first thought was that one of the other girls' boyfriends had planted them or maybe the girls one floor up were the recipients, and I thought, "how cute, and what a coincidence that it's my favorite flower too." And I went inside. But I thought about it some more, and I realized that perhaps... they were for me. And then I got a message from a good friend: "Maybe someone wanted to give you memories of sunshine and Assisi on a crummy day." Yup, they were for me. And they did just what I needed on that day. Made me feel loved when I otherwise wouldn't have. Made me feel cared for, even if it wasn't in a romantic way. Made me feel like I was worthwhile. That, I think, made for the best Valentine's Day I have ever had. I was shown compassion in a way that I needed the most. I was given hope.


Since that day, I have had all kinds of Valentine's Days, ranging from teaching love poems to my Senior English class, to giant balloons delivered to my classroom during the last class period of the day, to a quiet, barely noticed day going by in a flurry of activity. This year will be another quiet, uneventful one, marked by a fancy dessert and a nice at-home steak dinner after the baby goes to bed. Just the way it should be. When you have the kind of love I have, you don't need a day to make a big deal about it. I have it all year, in the quiet, unspoken things and the occasional grand gesture. It may not be big and flashy, but it is rich. Full. Like sunflowers.