Valentine’s Day: A Love That Learns to Stay

Valentine’s Day: A Love That Learns to Stay

Valentine’s Day is nearly here again. Store windows are filling with red hearts, roses, chocolates, and carefully chosen cards promising love in a few perfectly worded lines. It is a holiday often associated with new romance, the excitement of first dates, shy glances, and love that feels effortless and eternal. All of that is beautiful. But from where I sit, with more than 63 years of marriage behind me, Valentine’s Day has taken on a deeper, quieter meaning.

I have been married to one person for over six decades. Together, we built a life that gave us three living children, six grandchildren, and just last year, two great-grandsons. When I look at that simple math, I don’t just see numbers. I see a living timeline of love, love tested, reshaped, strengthened, and passed forward.

In the early years, love felt urgent and bright. Like most young couples, we believed love was something you felt. Over time, we learned that love is also something you do. It shows up in ordinary moments: paying bills at the kitchen table, raising children through sleepless nights, worrying about school, jobs, health, and the future. It shows up in forgiveness, patience, and the decision, made again and again, to stay.

Valentine’s Day, for us, is no longer about grand gestures. It’s about continuity. It’s about remembering how many chapters we’ve written together and how many more were shaped by the one decision we made long ago, to commit. Love, I’ve learned, isn’t proven by how loudly it declares itself, but by how quietly it endures.

Watching our family grow has been one of life’s greatest gifts. Seeing our children become parents, our grandchildren discovering who they are, and now holding my great-grandsons, it all feels like love echoing across generations. Every hug, every laugh, every shared meal is a reminder that love, when nurtured, multiplies.

For my younger readers, Valentine’s Day may be about finding love. For others, it may be about holding onto it, repairing it, or remembering it. Wherever you are in life, I hope this holiday offers a moment to pause and reflect. Not just on romance, but on companionship. Not just on passion, but on presence.

After 63 years, I can say this with confidence: love is not a single day in February. Love is a lifetime of choosing one another, through joy and hardship, certainty and doubt. Valentine’s Day is simply a reminder of that choice.

And if you’re lucky, one day you’ll look around a room filled with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and realize that the truest Valentine is the life you built together.

Meanwhile, here's our Dinner Menu here at THD Celebrating Valentines Day, 2026

And My Valentine Wreath Creation, Now Posted in My Door Here at THD

Lastly, Happy Valentine to ALL!