Ellen Painter Dollar
Sugar is the last thing you need, given the gummy “fruit” snacks and cookie-topped yogurts I put in your lunchboxes, against my better judgment.
And presents. You don’t need those either. The Shrinky Dink bracelet kit you started just after Christmas still sits on the dining room table, unfinished. The Barbies and American Girls have more clothes and accessories than I do.
Even so, tomorrow morning you will each find a heart-shaped box of chocolates, and a small gift on the breakfast table.
Some will say that lavishing Valentine’s Day gifts on my children instead of my husband is a sign that we have allowed the demanding, mundane love of children to hijack the primacy of our marital love.
They could be right. Your dad and I, though, were never that big on romance. We were friends for such a long time before we were anything else that romance seemed a little beside the point. And while 15 years of burgers and an early movie lack the poetry of candlelight and champagne, it has been 15 years, after all. Happy ones, too.
But back to your chocolates and presents.
I know you know that I love you. I say it every morning when you leave for the bus, every night when I tuck you in. You little ones still like to snuggle next to me in our big bed before heading off to your own, and even you, my teenager, return my “I love you” with your own, offered cheerfully enough, even if you don’t always take your eyes off your glowing screen when you say it.
But these routine expressions of love are really inadequate for the task of telling you how I feel about you.
When I go into your rooms at bedtime, I pull the blankets over your tired bodies, smoothing and tucking. You probably think I do that to make sure you’ll be warm and comfortable. I do, but it’s more than that. What I’m really doing is reassuring myself that for now, for the next few hours at least, you will be right here. I am, in a way, taking comfort in the fact that you are temporarily stuck here, in our house, in comfort, in safety. I pull the blankets snug, shove them more tightly under your mattress.
That makes me sound a little nuts, I know. A little over the top. It’s just that as you get older, I can no longer keep you so close. I am tucking you in, right here, ever aware that more and more of your life is being lived out there. Where I can’t always make sure you’re warm and safe. Where I can’t always know what people say to you and what you say back to them. Where you will discover new people and pleasures and talents and habits that will shape the person you will grow into. I hope that you choose the people and pleasures and talents and habits that will nurture your best self, allow you to be mostly happy and well, but I don’t know that you will.
My love for you is passionate, vast, hopeful, voracious, ardent, tender—perfectly suited, I think, to the heart shapes and fiery reds of Valentine’s Day. I’m guessing you would prefer I express my love for you in chocolates and presents, rather than trying to put it into words or (worse) action, which would just be embarrassing for all of us, and possibly a little bit frightening.
So I’ll stick with a box of chocolates, and a little something special picked out especially for each of you, and the same old “I love you” offered as you run out the door, trailing your backpack, moving out into the world—your world, where you will grow into yourself.
(And don’t worry. I bought chocolate for dad too. And for myself, because I’ve learned that’s the only way to make sure I get the kinds I like.)
Happy Valentine’s Day, my loves.
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