Happy Valentine's Day

In my kitchen is this ugly wreath. It is a heart-shaped wreath of dried flowers.

 

When I received this wreath on Valentine's Day 2007, I was a little baffled. If you're going to send your girlfriend something from 1-800-flowers for Valentine's Day from Iraq, wouldn't you pick roses? Everyone sends roses. Maybe you'd send daisies or carnations if you were on a budget, but a wreath? A dead flower wreath?

There was a note with the wreath:

I can't wait to hang this in our house together. I can't wait to move in with you. I love you.

Karl called me that day and asked if I had gotten his gift. I laughed and teased him about it. He asked if I read the note. Yes, I told him, it was very sweet.

 A year and a half later as we packed up to move from Washington to Texas, Karl looked on incredulously as I wrapped the wreath in tissue paper. The wreath hung in our dining room until I wrapped it back up to move it back to Washington. When we were going through things, discarding books, clothes, knick knacks, trying to pare down our possessions to fit into a smaller U-Haul, I delicately wrapped my wreath in tissue paper and taped it into a box marked fragile.

I don't think Karl understands why I keep the wreath, which I still laughingly maintain is a better gift for a grandma than a girlfriend, but I keep it anyway.

I tease him about the year I gave him a solid chocolate heart. I put it in his car the night before so when he left for work at five in the morning, he would be surprised. The chocolate was frozen solid, but he decided to eat it anyway. It knocked one of his baby teeth loose.  For years after that, I gave him chocolate milk for Valentine's Day, but now he has dental implants and this year I gave him a Reese's peanut butter heart.

Valentine's Day isn't about roses and chocolates, no matter what the television says. It is more about dead flower wreaths and knocked out baby teeth. It is about me washing the dishes because my husband is in Louisiana for his grandmother's funeral. It is about my husband writing "PREP FOR" on February 13 on his white board, because that takes some serious thought on his part - to remind himself to think about me is an amazing gift. Although he also got me a beautiful purple scarf.