The Day of Enforced Love and Loneliness

I can really do without Valentine's Day. If married people stopped waiting for a commercially mandated holiday to express their love for one another, there would be fewer divorces. Valentine's Day also manages to make people who aren't in relationships think there's something wrong with them.

It's really rather sad. That said, Peter will show up with a card this evening, so I probably should go out and buy him one, too.

I slipped the requisite chocolate into the offspring's lunches this morning, which they promptly removed to prevent being expected to share with their classmates. The day of love, indeed!

I have to admit, though, my parents loved to celebrate Valentine's Day. They'd hit the stationery store after Mass the Sunday before and pick out the mushiest cards for each other. Last year, when my mother was sick, my father brought her one with a passage in it that nearly knocked me off my feet.

This morning, he had a Mass said for her.