Valentine's Day At School shared anonymously Valentine's Day, that day of L – 0 – V – E! A day that the public schools in my home area chose as a day for the room mothers to get together and throw a party at the end of the day for the students in the classroom. Let me say at the outset, these mothers made sure that every child had a great celebration, nobody and I mean nobody, was left out. The preparations began days before the “Big Day.” We read about the day, we colored about the day, we all made little paper sack mail boxes to hang at the bottom of the bulletin board to hold our valentines. The sacks hung empty for two days, the teacher promising that each sack would be filled with valentines on the day of the party. I had my doubts, but if my teacher said so, I believed her. Mom, got me a box of little Valentine Cards with messages and little white envelopes. No matter what I get for Valentine's Day as an adult, those little cards are forever etched on my brain as a Valentine Card. With great effort and labor, I signed my name and wrote each class member's name on the outside. I was so proud; I just knew each and every classmate was eagerly waiting for my card. For some reason, we all tried to be sneaky about putting the cards in the sacks. I now realize that some of the kids had actually
not given everyone in class a Valentine and that some of the kids had bought special little candy hearts for BFFs. Upon observation of this behavior, I felt I had been deprived of vital, needto-know, information. It was an introduction to the fact that the playing field was not level. A hard lesson to learn at the age of six; Daddy tried to explain it to me, but I did not quite grasp the concept of me doing the right thing whether anybody else did or not. There were no names for attention deficient disorder, no concept of a specific learning disability, Aspergers wasn't on the map anywhere, dyslexia with numbers was simply referred to as not paying attention. All of these things combined to make me kind of an odd bird with my classmates. The teachers suspected I was smart because I was reading so far above grade level, but they really didn't know what to do with me. What saved me was that Mom was a strong advocate for children, otherwise education might have eluded me. Back to Valentine's Day. I was not a candidate for Valentines. The celebration of the day of love became a day for me to do an “In Your Face” to my classmates. Dad supported me in my efforts to always give great cards to every one. I dropped candy kisses in each bag, cinnamon hearts, and candy message hearts. Everybody got some, often anonymously, but they all knew it was me; they saw me doing it. Sometimes is was hard for me to do, because I hurt knowing that no one was doing it for me, but Dad assured me it was the right thing to do. This idea helped me learn lessons about the different kinds of love. Giving an unkind teacher a box of chocolates, learning to love the concept of love, to see love as something greater than having a boyfriend, to see that to have a friend I had to be one. I'll be the first to admit, those were hard days when I was a kid. But, they were valuable days. When my kids came along, I passed on the same lessons I had learned. Still, when Valentine's Day rolls round and I see those little boxes of cards with little envelopes my heart does a double beat with the memory of those first efforts at sharing love and friendship. To Daddy in heaven I say: “Lesson learned, Sir. Lesson learned.” -70-
