My husband never does anything –and I mean anything — for Valentine’s Day. In fact that includes birthdays, and any holiday. Even Baha’i holidays where we give gifts, he does not. This is a source of a certain resentment on my part, but we’ve been together so long, you learn what things to let go and accept as part of a person. Logical thinking tells me the reason why (Holidays are manufactured and promoted by the media as times you feel obligated to buy a gift and it’s all part of glitzy, capitalistic America.) But it’s hard to go through life never recv’g a gift from the one you love. It’s just tiring. After awhile, you don’t really care so much about logic.
However, this Valentine’s Day, after a snowstorm, which is rare in South Carolina, he wrote me a poem. Two rarities in one week! It’s called “Blanket”.
Blanket
I love the peace of a snowy windless night
That falls as a sky tossed blanket
Over the nakedness of my town
Each flake laughing – oh, so quietly
About a myriad acts of kindness
Angels descend with white crystalline
Blankets sewn of water diamonds
I love the peace that Carol brings
She covers my shivering soul
With our quilted marriage blanket
Each fold a joy – a pain – a challenge won
Thirty eight years and counting
Our memories the threads that stitch
The fabric covering our nakedness
(Al Black, 02/14/10)
Doctor Grandma 
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