A scrap of pink and red peeked from beneath the couch. I picked it up and read the silly message: Donald Duck saying, "I'm quacking over you. Be my Valentine." I smiled, remembering how very important those ridiculous lines once meant. How long has Valentine's Day been one of the most important dates in the elementary school year?
I turned the card over. It was blank on the backside. At first, I wondered if the youngest had forgotten to send it to a classmate. Would one child be left out, a Charlie Brown in our county.
Then I remembered how pleased my child had been in picking, choosing and writing his Valentines. He counted his stack more than once to make sure no one was left out. No, this was just a leftover Valentine without a sender or a receiver.
Flipping the card back over to the familiar face with the big beak, I wondered if there were someone to whom it would bring a smile, someone who probably wouldn't receive any Valentines and would feel as if no one cared whether he lived or died, much less whether or not he received a Valentine. A grown up Charlie Brown.
The telephone rang and I dropped the card on the table. I fixed supper, washed the dishes, folded a load of clothes, listened to the youngest cite the multiplication tables and covered a two and a half hour school board meeting.
This morning I came across that persnickety card again. But it was too late to mail it to anyone. Valentine's Day had come and gone for the year.
I wadded up the card and tossed it in the trash, hoping never to see it again. And yet, it nagged me. You know and I know that there are grown up Charlie Browns who never receive messages of love because there are some of us who think we are too busy to spare the moment.
1980
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