Love

We’ve never been huge Valentine’s Day people. We don’t hate it or anything and we don’t disdainfully dismiss it as a “Hallmark” holiday but it’s never really been our thing. We don’t exchange gifts or go out. We’ve traditionally given each other a couple of cards and called it a day. 

Then last year, following Cassie’s diagnosis, we found ourselves wanting to have a small Valentine’s Day dinner party for the first time ever. We had some friends over.  Dan cooked a delicious meal (actually he recreated the first meal he ever made for Cassie which turned out to have been on Valentine’s Day 1992 so maybe we are more VD people than we thought). We shared stories of how we met.  It was great.

This year we are doing the same thing and we’ve added a robust Valentine’s Day playlist and an eagerly anticipated — by us anyway —  game of “lovers bingo” (get your minds out of the gutter its pretty clean). The bubbly is on ice, Cassie is decorating the table, Dan has on special heart socks and the cooking (once again of the “first meal”) will commence shortly.

So what changed? Why is Valentine’s Day now something that feels more worthy of marking? It’s probably because we’ve learned you can’t take anything for granted including or maybe especially love. We constantly say to each other that we feel so lucky to have such a strong foundation. To still be so much in love. To have our feelings for each other sustain us in the midst of unrelenting sadness and grief. Not all couples going through a terminal cancer diagnosis have that going for them and many unfortunately end in divorce. Others die so quickly they don’t make it to the next Valentine’s Day. Before, on February 14, we used to blithely say that everyday should be a “day of love” but now leaning into Valentine’s Day and celebrating our twenty eight year love affair feels really important. And doing it with some of the friends who have helped support us and our relationship just seems right. 

Tell someone you love them. Don’t wait. Happy Valentine’s Day.