I’m not a big Hallmark Holiday person, so the fact that my husband won’t come home from work tonight with a giant bouquet of roses, chocolates, and a larger-than-life teddy bear is, frankly, a relief to me. The fact that he hung some curtains for me in our new house before he went to work was worth far more to me than any teddy bear!For Mitzi in 2018, though, when we were going about our day, she noticed sign spinners out in front of a local chocolate store with hearts and pink and red balloons decorating the signs. She could only read short words in very big print by this point, so she asked what was going on and I told her it was Valentine’s Day. Her whole demeanor changed abruptly. When I asked what upset her, she said she should do something for Gary. I asked if she wanted to get a card for him. Thankfully, she said that would be OK. I was grateful because if she had wanted to get him something more tangible, that would get really tricky. Trying to shop with her and help her make decisions for the close relationships in her life was tough. Cards were easier and we spent lots of time standing in Hallmark over the years with me reading cards to her until we’d find the perfect one. We always knew it was the perfect one because by the time I’d finish reading, she was always wiping tears away.So we stopped at the store and got some of her favorite salad goodies, then we went to pick out a card for Gary. I can’t remember how many I read to her standing on that aisle, but it was a lot. Finally, toward the end of the possibilities, (since Happy Valentine’s Day Dear Aunt wasn’t likely to be a hit for her husband!), we found one that had the magic words written inside to make the tears fall when I read them to her.“Today is all about remembering that love makes all the difference.”We went to their condo overlooking the ocean and had a nice salad, followed by some ice cream, of course. Writing anything at this point in the disease took tremendous concentration on her part and a lot of time. It was also imperative that I become a louder cheerleader than usual, and above all, show no signs of impatience of frustration with her or she would fall apart. Delicate moments like those reminded me of times when I’ve been helping someone at their home and was asked to move some fragile, priceless antique. You have to be so very gentle. She knew she couldn’t spell any longer and that she could barely write. She didn’t need me cementing any of that in. My job was to focus on what she was able to do and help as much as I could to let her work within those gifts that the disease hadn’t yet taken in their entirety. “Celebrate the wins,” she would always say. Mitzi would tell me what she wanted to write and I would tell her the letters, one by one. At this stage, I wasn’t yet helping to hold and guide the pen, but that’s how we would do cards later on. When she had written all she wanted, we sealed up the envelope.The hard part about cards for me was knowing how hard they might be on the recipient to read. So much of what the disease had done to Mitzi was achingly tangible in each painstakingly penned letter. But believe me when I say that a tremendous amount of love and time and effort, thought and care would go into them. From both of us. Some people might scoff at the idea of “just a card,” but the whole process took about an hour and a half, plus at least a dozen tissues.I wanted to post this on February 14th to let Mitzi remind us all, no matter who is in your life right now, or what they have to give, that today (and every day, really), is about remembering that love makes all the difference…????
