Valentine’s Day.  The day of love.  The day that you and your sweetheart rekindle your love, have quality time together and bring back to the surface all the reasons why you are in love with each other in the first place.  I call bullshit!

Dear Tiny Heart of Mine,

There is not just one day designated to matters of the heart.  LOVE is something we experience every day.  Sometimes we don’t even know it. Sometimes it’s BIG love like that of which you feel for another person, sometimes it’s small love that of which you have for your favorite color or ice cream or for me; purple tulips.   Love can be felt, experienced and appreciated in all ways, every day, not just on one day of the year.  It is not something all of a sudden you remember you need to feel. It’s something that is felt, by each and every one of us, through the normal course of our everyday lives.

Heart you have done me well all these years.  You have stood by my side, you have opened us up to things I never dreamt possible.  You have never given up on me.  You have been by my side through it all and even when I thought you would stop beating, that you would shrivel up and crawl into a hole and leave me; you never did.  You never gave up on us, you never stopped your ever flow of light and love because you knew.  You knew even when I didn’t that LOVE is what it’s all about.  Not money, not things, but LOVE.

You have filled me with so much feeling that it has at times, brought me to tears. The love I felt the day my children were born, you almost had us feel more love than I could bare.  You remind me to smile at the first of spring, on lazy summer days, at the leaves changing color and at the first snow.  You have taught me to LOVE life.  To fall in LOVE with my life, with the lives of others and if that joy that you make me feel I can express and share with even one other person, you have done your job.

I have loved with every last ounce of you, I have been careless and let you get broken, smashed and ripped out of my chest, but guess what?  Your beat still went on.   You were beating for my family, my friends, my children, the man I loved.  You were beating for those I have compassion and empathy for.  You were beating every single day and you know what?  No matter how many times I had you trampled on or how many tiny pieces I crashed you into, you always came back for me. You always believed in me.  You never let me down.

Heart, you are full of life and vigor when someone we meet becomes that person we can’t live without.  You are also full of life when sitting alone quietly in a room reflecting on our life.  My heart, you have been called cold, dark, unfeeling, selfish, impenetrable, but I don’t believe any of those things about my every so tiny, kind of like the Grinches heart. To me you are absolutely perfect.  With all your scars and all your marks, to me you are beautiful. Your wounds have created a fantastic tapestry of our life together.

My heart, you  have looked fear in the face and said HA!  You have been strong, determined and you have persevered.  You have even fluttered, skipped a beat, raced out of control and all the while you reminded me to live.  Don’t be afraid little heart of mine, love is always around us.  We may find it in a person, we may find in our dog, we may even find it in a stranger, but wherever we find it, remember that love is something we cannot live without.  It is the soul of our beings.  It is what we long for, what we don’t want to live without.  It is a primary source of living longer and of knowing we are alive.

No my tiny heart, do not get discouraged because of all you’ve been through.  Do not get hardened by fear or sadness.  Do not shy away from the feeling you so long to have inside you.  You will continue to love, you will flourish.  You will hold all the beautiful bounties that this life has to offer.  Be brave my little heart.  Be strong.  Be resilient. Never stop seeing the love that is continuously around us.  Open your eyes and count your blessings.  Never ever stop believing in love.  It is the blood that makes you pump so feverishly.  It is what you are made for.  And I for one, believe in you.  Not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day.

Valentine’s Day – this is not your day little heart of mine.  Valentine’s Day is every day for us.  So let’s live life together, hand in hand, with LOVE being the most precious gift you can give me and I can give others.