I Heart U

It's Valentine's Day, the day for the wearing of the red--which is now the new color of the campaign for awareness about women's heart disease, the #1 killer of women in America.

Kinda takes the bloom off the bazillion roses being sent today, doesn't it?

In the local school districts, Valentine's Day deliveries have been banned because they cause such disruption. Go figure: 3000 students at the high school where I work, and about 300 of them will receive some kind of Valentine recognition from friends/family/loved ones. How disruptive is that? Somewhat, but probably more a pain in the butt for the sole receptionist who has to accept the delivery and then direct it to the right recipient.

The solution for yet another perceived problem is to ban ALL Valentine deliveries--except for the ways and means products being sold by school groups, such as the carnations and balloon bouquets! Seems that it's okay to deliver gifts on campus, but only those gifts bought on campus.

Can you say double standard? Do as I say, not as I do?

I remember the year I helped to decorate the Valentine's box during grade school. I worked on it for 2 weeks and thought it was the most beautiful box I'd ever seen. I waited anxiously to receive Valentines from classmates because even if it was just a few, it meant that someone cared enough about me to acknowledge it with a card. Sure, some kids received more than others, but that is a life lesson! Not everyone always is going to get a lot of recognition from others: deal with it and move on. That year, I was honored to be the one who took the Valentine box home, and it spent a lot of years on the shelf in my bedroom.

By the time I was in junior high school, we no longer got to decide to whom we would send a Valentine's card: if a card was made/purchased for one student, everyone in the class also had to receive a card to make it "fair." For those of us too poor to buy that many Valentine cards, it meant the death of delivering the one special card.

The May Day festivities were canceled the year it was decided that 'someone' may think our school celebration was honoring the Russians, who chose May Day to hold a huge parade and demonstration of their military might for the world to see. I remember feeling so special my 6th grade year, the year that I got to wear a beautiful pink dress my mother made for me and dance the May Dance with the other 6th graders, as we wove the colored ribbons around the May pole. It was a special day and remains a special memory.

I remember making the May Day baskets that we wove so carefully, filled with flowers from the yard, hung on neighbor's doorknobs, and left there to find. Spring came alive with the holidays and celebrations that gave us something to anticipate each year.

No more. In our effort to be "equal" to all citizens and their countries of origin, we have lost so many of the traditions that used to be part of the American experience. It used to seem that there were enough traditions to include all cultures in some way in the celebrations throughout the year, but not today. We still picnic on the 4th of July, and some families still cook a Thanksgiving turkey, but the other holidays have fallen under the attacks of the people who must not have received Valentine's during their youth and are still bitter about not being the most popular kid in the class!

I won't receive candy, cards, and flowers today, but I'm hostess for a baby shower for a young student who was brutally attacked by a man who is now in prison. She said to me through her tears that it isn't the baby's fault that the man made her pregnant, so she will give birth to the child and raise the child in a family filled with love--something that the baby's sperm provider may never have known. A couple of the girls who share lunch break every day asked if we could have a shower, and we picked Valentine's Day as the perfect day to share our love with this girl.

I admire this woman in ways that cannot be expressed in words, so imagine my dismay to find that some of the girls in the "lunch krew" who eat in my classroom every day have been forbidden to attend the shower and/or bring a gift for it because their parents don't believe that young girls should "allow themselves to become pregnant." Of course, the parents don't know the crime behind the impending birth, but I pray that their daughters, all of whom are bragging about doing their boyfriends, but don't let my mom find out--she'd kill me--never have to eat their words or prove their love for their daughters.

Happy Valentine's Day.