papa's valentine

comes to me this day

of missing mama

beneath a winter gray sky

and cool swirls of snow

It is a constant ache-this quiet grief that gets carried along from day to day inside my heart, sometimes big and sometimes small, but always in the foreground, never letting me forget that life is forever different, forever changed without my mother.  Just a continuous feeling of grief and loss that can't be shared. 

So when my father (who turns 87 this Friday), who relies so much on me, who I am constantly caring for and giving to, said he had something for me yesterday when I was visiting, I all at once became a little girl again. In the midst of his bingo game he had me open this hand-made valentine with pink and red hearts glued all over the front, and written inside was "To my daughter, with all my love, Papa." I kissed him and thanked him, trying not to cry and he says "A little keepsake for you to remember me by."

For me, the valentine was all the love my parents wrapped me in from the day I was born-and finally I felt it again-what I had been missing since my mother's death- that wonderful love that can fill up my heart like nothing else.

It's almost as if my mother was sending her love through my father-at least that's how it felt to me.