By: Denise Beaton
The two Valentine’s Days I remember best were when I was not in love. They bookend my first serious relationship, the first Valentine’s Day I was in a couple, and the first Valentine’s Day I was single.
For the majority of my life, Valentine’s Day meant my parents’ anniversary, a wedding all of my family attended except for myself. My mother, previously married, did not place much faith in the institution. She married again for my father’s sake. To drive the point that the legal union was out of romance and not necessity, they went to the courthouse on February 14.
My oldest brother and sister attended, with my other brother also (quite noticeably) attending in utero. I came to know Valentine’s Day as an occasion for couples, where one person acquiesces to the wishes of the more romantic half.
In 2007, I had my first “real” job at The Bargain! Shop (the “!” was mandatory, and sometimes pronounced with a click of the tongue) and on February 14 I went to my shift after high school, donned a red polyester smock and nametag, and sold half-price discounted Valentine’s Day bargain!s.
It was also the year I had my first “real” boyfriend, but I was not expecting anything for Valentine’s Day. I had only celebrated by sending sweet text messages on the hunk of cracking plastic that was my Nokia flip phone.
Still, I suspected that I was the more romantic half of our couple, and every time the bell on the door to The Bargain! Shop jangled I would greet the entering customer with a fleeting look of disappointment followed by a forced smile.
When I arrived home I had come to terms with my lacklustre Valentine’s Day. I consoled myself by rationalizing that it was largely an invention of Hallmark — or The Bargain! Shop’s version, Hallnote — and to spend it working in a store was the most appropriate way to celebrate something so commercial.
I was shocked to walk in to my mother’s smiling face and a huge bouquet of wildflowers. I called my boyfriend to thank him, girlishly twirling the long spiral cord of the home phone around my fingers.
He had intended to just drop them off, but my mother demanded that he come in, choose a vase, and trim and arrange them himself. We had only been dating a few months, and I was more impressed that he would spend a half hour alone with my intimidating mother. I didn’t love him yet, but I would by spring.
And I did, for five years. Our calm, easy relationship ended with a dramatic, difficult breakup. High school sweethearts either grow together or, more often, grow apart. February 14, 2012 marked my first adult Valentine’s Day single. I don’t really remember the Valentine’s Days in between; they passed with the standard flowers and meals and cards.
In 2012 I had three new roommates: Sarah, a PhD candidate, and her two inbred cats, Stanley and Phoebe. I lived in my home province of Prince Edward Island at the time, where many barn cats with twisted family trees ended up at the Humane Society.
Kind-hearted Sarah adopted two of them: small, grey tortoise-shell Phoebe and greasy, dark, golden-eyed Stanley. Under her gentle attention they became healthy and confident, though they still had their quirks. Stanley tripped over his large paws, and his snaggle teeth protruded past his bottom lip. When he was pleased, his chin would be slick with drool.
That was how I found him outside of my bedroom door on February 14, making his sick seagull-sounding squawks of joy. He was sitting next to a box of chocolates. “Sarah,” I texted her, “I think your cat is trying to woo me.” I was touched by her thoughtfulness. The requirement of any surprise is a lack of expectation. This is difficult to achieve on Valentine’s Day, where expectations are the engine of how it is celebrated.
This Valentine’s Day, I will be at a long-term care residence. I’ve worked there as a research assistant, conducting a critical ethnography for the past year. I’ve spent time with husbands and wives who care for their spouses with advanced dementia.
One man visits his wife every day for lunch. When she looks away she forgets he is there, but he always beams when she looks back. He knows how she likes her food cut up and presented, what music she enjoys listening to, what clothes she prefers to wear.
When she looks back, she seems pleased and surprised that things are just so. Her husband lives between the spaces of her attention, though soon even her recognition and wonder will be gone.
Giving usually entails some element of taking. As givers we collect recognition, thanks, and praise, even if it is after the fact, over the phone, or attributed to a cat. The two Valentine’s Days I remember best were when I was not in love, when my expectations were subverted.
This Valentine’s Day I will be with couples who are not split by those who are more romantic, but by those who remember. And their partners will give all the same, anonymously, without thanks or witness, without possession or ego.
