My Valentine, Part 2 - The Rest of the Story

Antique Valentine card -
doesn't it suit the TH?!

 
After receiving the one Valentine's gift on Saturday, it seemed like God decided to have some fun. "Valentine's Day? Just the one day is enough for you?" he seemed to chortle. And these are some of the other Valentine gifts He has had delivered over the past days and weeks through various carefully selected cupids:

My lovely cousin, my own dear Sharon, pushed the cart for me at Costco and then bought me dinner afterwards. This after having popped a V-card in the mail for me. How I am enjoying getting to know this woman! To think that such a treasure has existed in my own back yard, within my grasp, for all these years ...

Music at church was made richer by my beautiful nephew Luke. This boy has been through fire and rain in his life already, and he is emerging tempered, malleable, strong, and with a spirit of generosity that reveals itself just when it's needed most.

Tuesday at first blush might have seemed like an odd Valentine's gift: I sat in ER with Dad for several hours. We shuffled about from the waiting room to the examination cubicle to the x-ray and lab areas and back to the examination cubicle again. There were no magazines anywhere. We got to chat and laugh and visit. There are so many demands on his time that the memory of these hours will be a keepsake I treasure.

One morning I was blind-sided. Literally. Five beautiful blinds were brought, already sized, to Nilgiris and then hung with care and obvious delight. Don and Norma had seen people squinting in the sunlight and found the perfect solution. "Some are for Valentines and some are for your birthday," they conceded when they realized that they had rendered me speechless.

As Sunday transitioned into Monday BA arrived at the TH. She had just returned from Calgary and came bearing a gift: a card and a red velvet heart-shaped cupcake filled and decorated with cream cheese icing from Deborah Joy. Deb also helped me enormously with the preparations for the Valentine's weekend ... 

Naomi, treasured friend, invited me for coffee and gave me the "purse" notepaper holder, complete with miniature pen that she had found separately and attached to the handle.

Brent came over for coffee and a chat in the purple chairs - the first time we have really been able to catch up since he started university. How gratifying it is to see one of "my" kids going forward academically, spiritually, socially. As his grandfather says, "That boy's one of a kind."


Tulips from Jackie. Jackie never forgets ...

And I received in the mail a book of the writings of Dorothy Wordsworth from my esteemed colleague and dear friend Bruce ...

And the Event this month with one of my favourite guys was enhanced by the presence of another one ...

I was given a heart-shaped tea strainer from Doreen and a card with 34 roses on it ...

... an hour of BA's time where we just sat by the fire and caught up; and another hour when she figured out how to hook my CD player to my iPod speaker in the dining room ...

 ... an entire bag of Georgette Heyer books from Kathryn, a woman after my own heart ...

...a visit from an old friend, Frances Ann, orchestrated by Cathryn ...

... and love in the key of A minor from Dan, who brought his lovely Missy for tea on a Saturday afternoon but also brought his violin and graced the TH with melodies floating unobtrusively over the chatter, swirling blissfully into the nooks and crannies of the place.

I also had a visit from my grandbabies and their mother and dad, Terri-Lyn and Collin. Terri-Lyn saw that I needed desserts and without missing a beat went back to the kitchen and cooked up a banana cream pie, just as if she had never left (Why did she leave, again ...?!) ...

... and a postcard from my Brenda in South Africa ...

... and a run to the Tilly shop on my behalf from Angela, who mercifully never gives up hope that some day I will be organized! ...

... and a flirty dress and frivolous scarf from Bronwyn ...

"And did she say she needed to be invited out for dinner?" God must have mused. Lo and behold, Dad and I were invited to the home of David and Elfie for a phenomenal dinner including her specialty, kartoffelkloesse, and a conversation that saw us in various parts of the world and at various times of history.

There were other little gifts slipped to me as well in the last few days, some tangible, many not. All of them exactly what I would want or need.

What a wonderful Valentine's time I experienced this year.  And all He asked in return was found in the message on a crazy little Valentine's candy heart:

BE MINE

If someone shows you like I've been shown how much he loves you, wouldn't you WANT to be his?!



Happy Valentine's, little TH!