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Valentine’s Day

Valentine's Day is a source of much anticipation and disappointment for many people, but none have more to lose or gain than the elementary school child. The teacher brings a gigantic box wrapped with shiny red paper and studded with white, paper-heart doilies into the classroom, and sets it on a table right in front of the chalkboard. The children file past, dropping their stacks of carefully signed and sealed Valentines into the slot cut into the top of the box. Then, they must wait as the teacher passes out the precious cards, one by painful one.

Whoever has the tallest stack when the box is empty is the winner.

And they say that love is not a game.

I can distinctly remember agonizing over whether or not to put "Love," as the closing on the Valentine's cards destined to end up on certain boys' desks. I can also remember simply scrawling my name at the bottom of the cards that my mother made me give out to boys and girls I did not like.

"You don't want to leave anyone out," she would say. "How would you like it if someone forgot to send you a card?"

Not at all. The snubs of Valentine's Days past would flit through my mind.

"But…"

"No buts," mom would say, and she would cross one more name off the list of my classmates for that school year.

Inevitably, I would end up with fewer cards than there were students in the classroom. I'm sure it was the same for everyone, and probably much worse for some, but I always wondered what was so wrong with me that little Oscar didn't want to send me a Valentine. Why didn't he like me?

Valentine's Day doesn't change much as we get older. There is no longer a box with a slot cut in the top; there is no longer a teacher placing cards on desks. But the feelings remain the same. Girls dreaming of wine and roses end up wondering, "Why doesn't he like me?" People feel neglected, left out.

Perhaps, we should all take the advice my mother gave me on a Valentine's Day not so long ago, and treat those we love and care for as if every day is Valentine's Day.

If today were Valentine's Day, how would you show your loved ones how much you care for them?

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