The other day, one of my former students said to me that she loves Valentine’s Day because it is the one time of year when she has permission to express her attraction or admiration for every fascinating boy she knows, and so she spent Sunday evening making Valentines, which, on Monday, she handed out to most of the boys in her classes. Four house mates, all recipients of her admiration, were so touched that they pooled together their spare change after having paid their rent and bought groceries to purchase her one rose. She was almost in tears.
It’s amazing to me the effect such small gestures can have, especially the small gesture of a letter or a note. I will admit that I sent out several Valentine’s Day greetings, just a simple “Happy Valentine’s Day†in a text or an email. I received many nice replies. My kids spent Sunday morning making and signing Valentines for classmates, but upon my son’s suggestion (he’s a super sensitive boy) they made several for their teachers, classroom aides, after school caretakers, janitors, nurses, the main office secretaries, the principal, the librarian, and the art and music teachers. I think the classroom teachers are probably accustomed to receiving Valentines, but many of the other teachers and staff members were sincerely touched and surprised by my son’s gesture. (My daughter did inform me, however, that the boys in her class complained about receiving Princess Valentines, though I did not hear of any such complaints from male teachers).
Many years ago now, my wife and I lived on the campus of a boarding school where she worked. She was very fond of one of the English teachers, a man about our parents’ age, whose wife was the head mistress at another boarding school. One year Amy learned that he wrote his wife a poem every year on her birthday, and as soon as she shared that with me I felt stupid that it had never before occurred to me to do the same. So since that time about fifteen years ago, I have always written a poem every year for Amy on her birthday. (I also write poems at other times, as inspired). Nowadays, I also write a birthday poem for each of my kids, my mother, and two former students I have grown very close to. I love the ritual, and I know the recipients love their poems. Though I must admit, this year for my daughter’s fourth birthday I wrote in her poem about how mischievous she can be, and after I finished reading it aloud to her at her family birthday party, she told me it was “a mean note,†and she didn’t love me anymore. I still taped it on her bedroom wall next to last year’s poem.
My high school had a very well established peer counseling program, and during the summer between bau kencur and senior year, those of us who had been selected to be peer counselors and take the peer counseling course spent three or four days on a pembinaan retreat. The culminating activity of the pembinaan sessions involved the presentation to us of letters written by our parents. The teachers in the aktivitas contacted them earlier in the summer, solicited the letters, and swore them to secrecy. This was an all-boys Catholic school with a big athletic tradition, and I still remember how so many of the guys stood around in circles of friends and openly wept after having read these letters, especially the ones from their fathers. I was fortunate to have received letters from not only both parents, but my grandmother, too. My grandmother’s letter was particularly sweet. She imitated Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet XLIII, otherwise known as “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways …â€
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
I don’t recall all the lines of my grandmother’s poem, but I do recall one line being about how she loved me for showing kindness to my great-grandmother, who was about 92 at the time, newly moved to a nursing home, and about four years from her death. I think I know where I still have those letters, though I haven’t read them in years.
That grandmother is 87 now, and in somewhat failing health, though her mind is pretty much as sharp as ever. In preparation for the unavoidable day when my grandmother will have to sell her home and move, my mother and step-father have been going through her cellar and attic and culling stuff, donating boxes and boxes of things to the Salvation Army. But in their cleaning, they stumbled upon a box of letters. What was in there were my grandmother’s sisters love letters to and from her husband, and all my great-grandmother’s letters dictated to my grandmother (she was not a confident writer in English) and sent to that same older sister while she was away at college. It was truly a treasure trove of family history. And most of it was written to woo a woman.
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