Sunday, February 13th 2011

Happy Sunday – Happy Love Notes Day!


     

Here are the two silliest messages that I found when I searched on the web for 'Love Notes':

       What is love? It is what makes your cell phone ring every time I send text messages.

       There are two reasons why I wake up in the morning: my alarm clock and you.

So much for love in the modern age!

This Tuesday our luncheon time will be taken up with auctioning left over goods from Love Notes and exchanging stories about the event. For those of you who have other commitments this afternoon, do take advantage of Tuesday's opportunity to hear all about it. 

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On a related theme, yesterday was my daughter-in-law's birthday so we visited her with a card and gifts. This set me thinking. Whatever could be the reason for congratulating someone for being involved in an event over which they had absolutely no control. Now, to congratulate the parents, especially the mother, would make perfect sense to me. After all, she was the one who experienced, even suffered, endless months of discomfort and ill-fitting clothes, and cravings for weird foods that were probably completely out of season and unavailable. She put up with ugly puffy ankles and a bump that got in the way whichever way you turned when trying to get to sleep.

 I became a mother in a hospital that had been opened in 1870 to serve the local workhouse for the poor, and remained so until 1930.

 Although much updated inside, the exterior still had that dark forbidding look of high brick walls with little windows that glared back as if daring you to feel any sense of pleasure at entering therein. Husbands were considered to be of no consequence whatever and were grudgingly permitted to visit each evening for one hour and one hour only, not a minute more. While in labor, the expectant mother was confined to bed in a tiny room and left to consider her state until the interesting event was imminent.

Out of this appeared the miracle that is motherhood. One tiny squealing little bundle of fists and feet captures the heart and renders all that has passed inconsequential. How else but by a miracle would I have willingly and happily repeated the process only two years later.

And so, In December and January, on the anniversaries of my sons' births, I not only present them with gifts, but I also give thanks for having myself been blest with the gift of motherhood.

Valentine's Day is traditionally associated with romantic partners, but I also like to think of it as an opportunity to think about the many kinds of love, and how they enrich our lives on so many different levels. May you be as blest as I have been.

Love to you all,

Vivienne