Greetings from six and a half months.
I missed the six-month blog post because I had been experiencing overwhelming sadness that brought on spontaneous sobbing and crushing fatigue.
No doubt not having my life partner by my side as we started 2022 was a huge part of it, but I am also menopausal, which could cause all the same symptoms, and then I took a spill on my stairs and fractured my ankle, so the healing process could have also sapped my energy.
And now we have a confluence of craptasticity:
- January 27: Six months since Vic passed away
- February 6: Mom's birthday—the second one without her
- February 14: Three years since my dad died
- March 20: Two years since my mom died (I know it's still a month away, but her birthday just naturally brings her deathday to mind)
And as I write to you, today is our halfiversary. You heard me. Our halfiversary. We always celebrated our 'versary, as we called it, on the 13th, and February 13 is the half-way point in the year. Yeah. We were that couple.
So no, I'm not doing that great right now.
But it's not because it's almost Valentine's Day, which, in its current form, is just a way for companies to sell stuff (just like every other holiday—who doesn't want a mattress on Presidents' Day?). Although we were that couple, we didn't really celebrate Valentine's Day. We exchanged cards, and Vic bought me candy, but we stopped going out for dinner when restaurants reduced the menu and increased the price. (Don't get me started on the price gouging of flowers.) So whenever anyone would ask me, “What are you doing for Valentine's Day?” I would respond, “We don't really celebrate. It's just a made-up holiday anyway.”
The reason I'm not doing great is because it's ... a day. Another day without my husband. My father. My mother. Another day where I have to do the dishes and feed Bella and put the laundry away. Where no one will come and kiss me on the head while I'm working. (No, Bella will not kiss me on the head.) Where no one will be sitting across the room while we're watching some Oscar-nominated movie that I hate but feel like I have to watch the whole thing because it's OSCAR. NOMINATED. and then I'll catch his eye and and see that he hates it too and suddenly feel better that I'd rather watch Dodgeball for the 20th time than this Important Movie. (And then I'll turn it off and go get Dodgeball from the basement. Worth it just to watch Alan Tudyk as Steve The Pirate.)
But.
I talked to my stepmom today, and as usual, her silent strength filled up my energy tank. And I took a walk with my neighbor on Friday and recounted a couple of Valentine's Day stories, which reminded me that, although we didn't “celebrate” Valentine's Day, Vic always made sure that I knew I was his Valentine.
So tomorrow, when I am tempted to feel sad that my Valentine is at the Rainbow Bridge with his other Valentine, I will instead remember these two stories:
The first one is from a long time ago. If you have known me for more than a minute, you know that I love chocolate. (All kinds of sweets, actually, but for the purposes of this story, it's just chocolate.) So every year, Vic would go down to the Stephany's Chocolates in the Twin Peaks Mall (both, sadly, gone now—I could make this story really long if I told you all the memories I have from Stephany's and the mall) and buy me a heart-shaped box of candy. Beautiful heart-shaped boxes—sometimes with flowers on them, sometimes covered in velvet, just gorgeous.
One day shortly before Valentine's Day, he said, “We need to talk.” Nothing good ever comes after those four words, so I was preparing for the worst.
“I went to Stephany's today.”
I'm thinking Stephany's has closed. Or they ran out of chocolate. Or some other disaster.
“Did you know that the heart-shaped boxes cost more than regular boxes—and they have less candy?”
Leave it to my Valentine to notice that a $9.99 heart-shaped box would have 12 oz. of candy while a $7.99 plain box would have 16 oz. And leave it to my Valentine to know that I would care. And leave it to my Valentine to have enough common sense to know that he could ask me whether the shape of the box was more important than the amount of candy.
(You know I picked more candy, but I do still have the last heart-shaped box he gave me—probably from the 90s.)
The second story is more recent.
With the shuttering of Stephany's in 2006, we had to figure out a new chocolate source. We settled on Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, where every year, he would get six vanilla caramels with dark chocolate, one milk chocolate Cashew Bear (like a Turtle, but with cashews) and one milk chocolate Mountain Toffee. It doesn't sound like a lot of candy, but each of the caramels is about the size of four Stephany's chocolates, the cashew bear is bigger than the palm of my hand, and the mountain toffee is too rich to have more than one.
He liked to go to the one in Boulder—downtown, even though that meant a parking hassle—because he thought they were fresher than the ones in Longmont. And he liked to do this alone because he thought it meant more than dragging me with him.
But as you know, his heart had other plans for him. In December 2014, Vic had a heart incident that meant he couldn't drive for at least six months. Valentine's Day was just two short months away. A few days before Valentine's Day, I asked if he wanted me to get my own chocolates. (I do not stand on ceremony—I know he would get the chocolates if he could, but he couldn't, so I can do it. RMCF was a block away from my office—bathroom breaks take longer than getting chocolates.)
“I already have your chocolates.”
Talk about a mic drop moment.
The RMCF in Longmont is 15 minutes from our house. Unless you can't drive. And then it's three buses that take an hour to get across town, followed by about an hour of waiting for them to make the round again, and then another three buses home.
Three hours. Because I was his Valentine.
I started picking up my chocolates the next year, and he let me. Although he could drive by then, it just didn't make sense when I could get them so easily. But that year he sent me this while I was at work:
The rose is one of his pictures from our garden, and the words are from a John Denver song. The funny thing about this was that Vic wasn't much of a romantic gesture guy. Most of my Valentine's Day cards are Snoopy cards, and we all know about the “I'll love you 'til I croak” anniversary card the year he died in the Apple store. He expressed his love in everyday gestures—scraping off my windshield, getting up early to make a pot roast, scrubbing the toilets the night before he had surgery so I didn't have to worry about them while he was laid up. I didn't need a dozen roses or a candlelit dinner. Just a rose picture, a John Denver song, a box of chocolates and my sweetie.
