Spring Break
Lost Chances, Lost Valentines
Bryan Rockstroh
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Tradition demands that on this day of the Big Red Heart you pay a little more attention to the person you share your life with, if you're lucky enough to have someone.
Normally we tend to take that other person for granted, except for a day like today or on an anniversary or maybe even a birthday. On a day like that we shower the other person with gifts and flowers and say, "I love you I love you here's a present open it do you like it good I love you too okay gotta go to work now see you later."
For a lot of couples I know, there endeth the party.
So here's a Valentine's Day gift to anyone who's reading.
Some time between now and midnight, go out and have a quiet drink by yourself. Have another, and maybe one more to really set the mood.
Now that you're feeling thoughtful, consider this:
What if your significant other died?
Or left you?
Or turned gay?
Or turned straight, depending on your inclination.
Couldn't happen?
Sure it could. It happens all the time. People lose things. They lose each other. Not much fun. Not fair. But it happens. People die. They can get tired of you. They can get bored, wander off, go crazy, get struck by lightning,win the lottery and find someone better looking. It's a crazy world, and crazy things happen.
You could be married one year and divorced the next and find yourself walking down the street at three in the morning with a "what the hell just happened" look on your face and an heavily empty feeling in your gut and a voice in your head that just won't shut up about how you shouldn't have taken her for granted and done this differently or made that work out somehow, and then you'll start drinking heavily and your friends will be keeping sharp objects away from you and won't go into any tall buildings with you and start calling you things like "Time Bomb" behind your back.
But back to the quiet little table in the corner of the bar. You've had a few, and you're thinking about what it would be like if he or she were dead and you were suddenly alone and missing the hell out of them, and suddenly you're sorry for every mean rotten spiteful petty thing you ever did and if they would only come back to life somehow then you'd make it right and treat them like a king or a queen or whatever because you sure are sorry you didn't appreciate them when they were around.
Now sober up. They're not dead. But they could be. Just like that. So on this day of the Big Red Heart, appreciate your loved one as if he or she were just involved in a near-fatal car accident in which the paramedic stopped you before you could cross the yellow police tape and said, "I'm sorry but she was dead when we got here," and your heart stops there on the spot with hers just as another paramedic comes up and says, "Sorry, no, it's actually the other driver who got killed; your girlfriend's in the ambulance. She'll be all right. Just a couple of broken legs."
Morbid, but you get the point. On this Valentine's Day, love your special someone with everything you have, because with maniacs like Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush, along with disasters like car accidents, hurricanes and earthquakes, it's an uncertain world, and sooner or later death is inevitable. Hopefully later, so those of you with cause can celebrate Valentine's Day today, and really mean it this time.
