Kevin and Ida’s Wedding

Love, Valentine, Chaucer and chocolate

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I think about love, in all of its forms and what this day means to me.  Despite the traditional way of celebrating it, Valentine’s Day, like love, isn’t exclusive to courtly love.

In fact, the story of St. Valentine is mostly myth and has nothing to do with lovers.  St. Valentine was martyred on February 14th in the 3rd century.  It was hardly a day of celebration, at least on this side of eternity.  His story may even be a picture of several martyrs with the same name.  Valentinus is the Latin word for “worthy, strong or powerful,” and as such, it was a popular name between the 2nd and 8th centuries A.D.  There were several martyrs with his name.  Perhaps his name was as common as John is in our culture.

It was Chaucer who took creative liberties with fact with fiction and placed Valentine in a fictitious romantic setting — about a thousand years after Valentine was martyred.  Indeed, Valentine’s martyrdom does demonstrate his love for something, or someone else greater than himself.  Either he loved God or he loved his convictions more than his own life.

The greatest love is not romantic love at all.  Jesus said, ^“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”  (John 15:13) And it was Jesus who showed that perfect love for us, whether we accept it or not.  For as long as I can remember, I knew this and I trusted His love.

And in my life, there are people who mirror that godly love to me.  My favorite Valentine’s Day memories involve my family, my children and my friends.  My grandfather gave me a big, red, heart-shaped box full of chocolates every Valentine’s Day from the time I was a little girl until I foolishly dismissed and stifled his loving gesture when I was a teenager.  My oldest daughter made me home-made Valentine’s Day cards every year until she was able to buy them.  I have every single one of them and I cherish all of her home-made love notes, cards and artwork.

One year, when I lived in Paris, I had the most exciting, fun-filled Valentine’s Day with my closest friend at the time, Fred.  He was my next-door neighbor and practically my roommate.  We were always together — either at my place or out running errands or out in Paris.  On Valentine’s night, he asked me to join him and his friends for a “fête” or party.  He took me out for dinner and then we met up with all of his police officer friends at his friend Sebastien’s apartment before we all spent the night dancing on a boat-turned-night-club on the Seine.  For most people, it would be romantic but for me and Fred, it was a fraternal and pure love.  The only thing Romantic was the backdrop — the “city of love,” the Seine, the history of the French Revolution that surrounded us.

It is in these relationships with God, my family and my friends — where I was loved in the truest sense, where I was safe and where I was never betrayed — that I found the greatest love, the greatest joy, the greatest freedom to be myself and know I was loved just as I am.

My grandfather and Fred are no longer here.  But, there have been — and still are — many other people in my life that feed my spirit with that kind of love — true, selfless, life-giving.  My friends.  My family.  My oldest child is in college now and she always sends me tokens of her love that instantly bring me back to the days of her childhood and youth.  She is still — and always will be — a loving, giving person to everyone around her.  She makes me so proud, so happy, so blessed to be her mama.  Last night, I read a book that I bought for her when she was 3 years-old for Valentine’s Day.  It was Raggedy Ann’s Stories, which I gave to her with a Raggedy Ann doll, and chocolates, of course.  Now, my youngest child loves that book and it’s been our bedtime, lunch time, any time book of choice for several weeks.  Before I became a mother, I longed for a love that fulfilled me like this.  The love that flows between me and my children is the love that surpasses all other loves.  Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 

Or her family.