Valentine's Day Goes By

It's midnight and Sunday February the 14th, 2010 is officially over. The holiday passed us by because our minds were still on Peanut and the small memorial we held at a local church on Saturday. There was music, prayer, and a photo montage on DVD that day. My mother in-law read a special poem that my dad sent us called "The Angel Baby". Along with it, my husband and I read a letter that we'd written to Peanut telling him how much we miss him and naming off some of the many things we wish we could share with him. When we first wrote the letter we cried a lot, but somehow we managed to read it at the church without falling apart.

After the service some of the ladies at the church served us a light lunch and people were able to visit for awhile. They also gave me a bouquet of miniature daffodils, which I took home and placed by some other bouquets near Peanut's urn. We took an evening walk with some friends in the rain and my mother in-law treated us to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant. I was really happy that a couple of my closest friends could be there. I was also very touched that one of my husband's childhood friends flew across the country to be with us.

Valentine's Day was very, very low key. I slept in and didn't go to church. My mother in-law was going through a hard time because her husband fell and broke his hip over the weekend. She kept taking phone calls and finally found out he was recovering after surgery. Even with all that going on, she decided to take a long afternoon walk with us. We got rained on again, but there were a couple sun breaks and we looked at some houses that might be fun to buy if we could afford them. My mother in-law said she wants to take us house hunting later this week.

I cooked Pad Thai for everyone tonight and we watched "Angels and Demons", which was pretty entertaining. My mother in-law slept through the whole thing, so I don't know if she liked it much though.

I did tape a few Valentine hearts to the door late Saturday night, although I did not bake cookies or send cards this year. There was no need for Hubby to buy flowers for me because the apartment is filled with flowers from the memorial and people expressing condolences. The roses my brother in-law sent from Utah are especially fragrant. I opened a window tonight and the combination of the rainy air and rose petals gave our place the most wonderful scent. It reminded me of being a young girl and staying at my grandma's house. She always had roses growing near the windows and you could smell them on cool nights with the windows open.

I noticed some of the older flower arrangements were shedding off dried petals tonight. They were beautiful in their own way. The ones near Peanut's urn were dropping petals like autumn leaves on a grave. I thought about my childhood home in the fall and all the beautiful leaves, golden sunlight, and crisp air. I remembered visiting last September and telling my dad the good news that I was pregnant. We were all so happy. Of course, it was early in the pregnancy, so I worried that I might miscarry. But I didn't. Then I figured I was in the clear and I had no idea what heart break was in store for me.