from a friend

my valentine

It was February 14, of course. I’m not sure what year. Perhaps 1990? I was giving my friends some red felt-paper strawberries and greeting everybody a happy valentine’s day when I found a Peanuts valentine card among my things with just the words “finderskeepers” on it. Wow. I liked being found, you know. It meant a lot to me that you have known me the way nobody else had. You saw me for just being me. I just wasn’t sure about the keeping-thing, though, and it didn’t occur to me that time that you expected a response to that. It was enough that I knew I was special.

You were probably the most sophisticated mind I have ever engaged with. You knew what I was about to tell you even before the words escaped my lips. Sometimes, I didn’t even have to say a thing and your eyes would glint in acknowledgement. You didn’t actually need words yourself then. A simple hello would suffice every time you pass by our house by evening of my birthdays. You rendered me speechless once when you told me five meals a day would make a life for you and me.

And you had the composure of a grown man. Boy, did I love that about you? I remember one of the sisters posed a question as a spiritual exercise, asking “If you have just learned that you only have a day to live, what will you do?” You know what you said? You said you will spend the day like any other day in your life, for everything is perfect exactly the way they are. Wasn’t that amazing? To be young and to be so at peace with the world? I envied that about you.

With everything in the past now, please know that I am grateful for your friendship and that I will always cherish you in my memories, and hold you dear in my heart. Unlike you though, a day for me is always a start of major repair plan to fix my life. Everything is quite not perfect yet.