Happy Valentine’s Day – we have long celebrated today as a legacy of romance.
A Little History
With roots as far back as the Roman Empire, people have been celebrating and sharing gifts on a special day in February for a very long time. Today Valentine’s is second only to Christmas in the amount of cards exchanged.
Written valentines begin to appear in the last part of the middle ages. Charles, Duke of Orleans wrote a poem to his wife in 1415 while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. This poem is the oldest known valentines still in existence today.
Legacy of Romance
Growing up I loved visiting with people in the neighborhood. I often popped in to see how a community elder was doing and catch up on the local gossip.
During one of these visits my friend and I got to talking about my love life and she had me “hold that thought”. She shuffled into the back room and returned with a hand stitched card still in it’s tattered envelope. The valentine’s day card, circa 1930’s included a hand written message of love and longing. When she and her late husband started dating, they spent many months apart and he sent her a letter every week. And in 60+ years of marriage he absolutely never missed a Valentine’s Day card.
She had all of them. But this one was the first one he sent. It wasn’t so much the card or the message that stayed with her. It was the very act of sending it. Of taking a moment to say I’m thinking of you. “That is what makes a marriage”, she said, with a mischievous grin and a watery eye. The legacy of romance still very present; even past the promise of until death do us part.
Blueskies,
Tami