Pondering about Valentine’s Day on this blue sky, bright sunshiny day. The sky is so beautiful after the rainy days, pure robin egg blue, not a cloud in sight. Cool wind so I can’t sit out on the porch comfortably and watch the birds. I’m enjoying being serenaded by the soft music from the wind chimes. I filled up all the bird feeders, cleaned out the bird baths and filled them back up and gave Mr. Downy Woodpecker some new suet. He’s almost cleaned out two baskets the last few days. He’s been chowing down on the suet basket outside the lady den windows this morning. He lets me get pretty close before he flutters away to a branch to wait patiently for me to leave. So handsome in his black and white checkered coat and red beret. The goldfinches are beginning to put on their crayon yellow sport coats and the purple finches are so beautiful in their dark raspberry plumage.

Back in the lady den now watching the birds and thinking about Chief. I think the greatest gift we can give our spouse or our special loved one is to accept them as they truly are, let them be themselves without trying to change them or mold them into the person we want them to be. True abiding love doesn’t try to put a round peg in a square hole. When the roads are hard to travel and all you have are each other, if you haven’t picked your travel partner well, you’re going to have a long, hard, lonely walk. Sometimes love is all we have to hold on to. Love is not like the Hallmark movies and the Valentine’s Day card sentiments. Life is not all roses and hearts.

Life and love are hard and full of heartaches but when love is true and real it’s so wonderful to experience. True love is rare. It’s an emotional and intellectual connection, a desire to make the other person happy regardless of your own wants. The connection brings a feeling of companionship, of working together to achieve goals and dreams. You trust each other and listen to each other and encourage each other to be yourself.

I never thought I would find love. Love had burnt me once when I was younger and I just gave up looking for it again. I stumbled across love when I wasn’t looking for love when I left my work with The Roanoke Leader and moved to Alexander City to work with Russell Corporation’s internal publications, where Tom Saunders served as Editor in Chief. It was just the two of us working together creating all the publications.

I remember the first time I realized I loved Chief. We were flying down Highway 280 at night on the way to the Sylacauga Sewing Plant to cover a safety dinner on the third shift. We were speeding along in Chief’s green station wagon. Yes, he used to drive fast, and yes, he drove a station wagon so he would have enough space to transport The Russell Records. He delivered the papers to some of the smaller plants and corporate offices.

We had the windows down in the station wagon, he never, ever turned on the air conditioning in his car. He was passing all the big trucks on the highway. Our hair was blowing in the breeze and as I looked across the front seat at him and he smiled back at me, my heart started racing, my hands started sweating. And I knew immediately, “Oh, no…, I’m in love with my boss!” And I thought, what a predicament, falling in love with a wonderful friend.. I waited for him to say, “I love you first.” I knew when he said he would mean it from the depth of his heart. I always felt God had put me on Earth to make him happy. And I think I did.

I had a beautiful love story with Chief and watched it play out around me in a happy marriage of almost 40 years. He turned 45 the day after our wedding and I turned 26 four days later. And trust me, forty years was not long enough for me to love him. My heart would race when I heard his footsteps on the stairs at my apartment and years later continued to race when I heard his truck tires coming down the dirt road to our home. I know he was well loved and I was, too.

We got married two years after I went to work with him, raised three beautiful children. We continued to work together at the publications for almost 30 years. He was a Southern gentlemen, courteous and well mannered, and raised his sons to be gentlemen, too. When we lost our teenage daughter to a car wreck, our love grew deeper and our marriage grew stronger as we tried to hold each other up through our grief. His love for our family was deep and true and he bragged on our children, our daughter-in-law, and our grandchildren constantly to anyone who would listen.

It doesn’t take expensive gifts to celebrate Valentine’s Day. The bouquets of wildflowers, the first yellow daffodils of spring, the first beautiful fall leaves he picked up, the first vegetables from his garden warm from the sun, the beautiful bird feathers he found, always thrilled me and made my heart race when he put them in my hands. He had seen something beautiful in nature and thought of me. He was a gentle man and a gentleman. He was my Valentine.

I miss Chief every second, every minute, and every hour of everyday. But I know one day I’ll be his Valentine again in heaven. This Valentine’s Day put your arms around your special someone and hug your children and tell them they are wanted and loved and needed and appreciated and you’re proud of them because we never know what tomorrow will bring. Celebrate the “I love yous” every day, not just on Valentine’s Day.

“To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return.” — Margaret Mitchell