Everyday Valentines

You’ve probably seen enough Valentine’s Day articles, advertising, memes, and messages by now. If you follow Catholic media, you’ve heard plenty about the real Saint Valentine as well. While recognizing a special day for the saint and for sharing our love is great, it’s often lost in the shuffle for many of us. For busy parents, this creates an additional demand for Valentine’s Day treats for our kids and sometimes classmates too. For couples, there’s a social obligation of a token of love. A card, candies, flowers, something to say you love the other. Restaurants are flooded with couples making time for date night.

Thing is, there isn’t always time for this in a busy household. Honestly, I forgot to put the Valentines out for my kids this morning before school. My husband works overnights, so I’ll barely see him for a couple days. Truthfully, I can’t remember the last time we had a date, a real date… without the kids. So, how can the busy people like myself ‘show our love’ in the hustle-bustle of life?

Simple, I do it every day. I don’t wait for a special day or go out of my way to spend $5 on a card to get recycled in a week. My husband knows better than to spend our grocery money on flowers for me. We find our Valentines in the little, everyday things we do. He grabs my favorite snack at the grocery store without me asking. I turn on the coffee maker before he comes downstairs to go to work in the evenings. He makes sure dinner includes options I can eat (since I have so many restrictions.) I make sure his devices are charged when he has a CPR class to teach. We say please, thank you, and ‘I love you’ as often as we can.

We don’t need a special day to appreciate our loved ones. It’s a nice thing to make a special day, but many of these tokens of love can be done throughout the year. Instead of waiting for a special day, we can make any day special. If we continue to do for the other in small ways, we will feel a greater love in a big way.

St. Valentine made great sacrifices, converting others to Christianity and marrying Christian couples in secret. He was eventually martyred for his refusal to stop sometime in the early first century. If we could take a page from St. Valentine’s book, it’s not about candy or cards or flowers, but about love, true love. Love is charity, sacrifice, and love in continuous.

So, if you (or your loved one) missed the day or forgot something special, just take little moments to appreciate and serve one another. Perhaps the best you can do for the love of your life is to pray for him/her. Whatever you do, be sincere and don’t limit yourself to this one, over-secularly-sensationalized holiday. Carry that sincerity into the next day, and the next. Make it an everyday Valentine.