Month: February 2016

  • Hearts and Roses

    February 15, 2016

    On Friday I watched with some amusement as male shoppers at Costco swooped up to the display of red roses, snatched bouquets of a dozen roses, and stuck them in their carts. I  knew they were checking off a mental box, and wondered if the candy aisle was next.

    Bill was always conscientious about remembering me on Valentine’s Day. The gifts were not lavish—a small heart-shaped box of chocolates, a bunch of flowers from the grocery store, a card either funny or sentimental—but he never forgot. Usually the gifts appeared at the dinner table, or at breakfast if Valentine’s Day fell on a weekend. I don’t think we ever went out to dinner, but we had a special meal at home.

    I have missed those tokens of love since Bill’s death. No cards, no flowers, no chocolates. Poor me. So this year I did something different. I ordered flowers to be delivered to my sister-in-law who always has been loving and kind to me, and who misses Bill as I do.  I sent electronic Valentine’s Day cards to friends, especially those who might not receive any. And I got out the last Valentine’s Day card Bill gave me; it is a Peanuts card, with Snoopy on the front, and inside Bill wrote, “love always.”

    I look at those words and realize I do not need flowers and candy; I was loved by a good man, and I have his love always.

    And on Sunday, Valentine’s Day, I went to church where a blue-eyed little Girl Scout presented me with the two boxes of cookies I had ordered: Thin Mints. Chocolates for me after all, on Valentine’s Day.

  • Penelope

     

    February 5, 2016

    And so every night, Penelope undid the threads of her weaving of the day before,
    Carefully, delicately, pulling apart the warp from the woof,
    Separating the yarns of sky-blue and sea green,
    Yarns as green as the olive tree leaves,
    Yarns as purple as the grapes,
    Preparing to weave them together again in the morning

    And here in the morning
    I weave together this new cloth
    From threads both old and new
    Knowing that your ship will not return to the harbor
    And that I must pick up threads from our life together

    The yellow of the young honey of our early lives
    The red and purple of the busy, tumultuous years
    The calm blues of our lives as time slowed down

    Weaving into the new cloth the cut threads of your life
    Until they melt into the cloth and shine as richly

    As the morning sunThreads