I’ll Know!

Several years back, in a long-distance telephone conversation, one of my granddaughters reminded me that Valentine’s Day is coming ’round again.

She didn’t ask if I would be her Valentine again, as she had for most of her six years.  Instead, she mentioned she’d be giving a Valentine to every one of her classmates at school.

“Every one of them?” I exclaimed, mildly astonished.  “Don’t you have…like, one special Valentine?”

“That’s not how it works, Gramps,” she replied.  “In grade one, you give everybody a Valentine.  All the kids do.”

I wondered how many youngsters she was planning to buy a Valentine card for.  After all, how many Valentines can a six-year-old handle?

“How can one person have so many? I protested.  “Being somebody’s Valentine is supposed to be a special thing.  Won’t people wonder why you’re giving everyone a card?”

“Gramps!  You don’t understand!  They won’t know who gave the Valentines to them.  Mummy’s going to help me print Guess Who? on all of them.”

“Okay, wait a minute, l’il guy,” I said.  “Let me get this straight.  You’re going to give a Valentine to every kid in your class…”

“And my teacher,” she cut in.

“And your teacher,” I continued.  “But if you’re not going to put your name on them, nobody will know you gave them one.  I don’t get it.”

“Oh, they’ll know, Gramps!  Everybody knows.  They just won’t know which Valentine I gave them.  That’s the fun of it.”

That’s the fun of it?   Back when I was a kid, the fun of it was deciding whom I would ask to be my special Valentine.  To which little girl would I dare to offer a Valentine card?  And would she accept it without laughing?  Or worse, not accept it at all?

There was a certain delicious risk involved back then, a risk that made the whole exercise worthwhile.  After all, asking someone to be your special Valentine meant you were sort of sweet on her or him.

But times change, I suppose, and so have Valentine cards.  Nowadays, they don’t ask someone to be your Valentine; instead, they proclaim Happy Valentine’s Day! They’ve become indistinguishable from birthday cards!

Anyway, before hanging up, I wished my granddaughter success with her plans.  And I harboured the faint hope that perhaps I’d still receive a Valentine from her—with her name on it!

After the call, I kept thinking about our conversation.  Anonymous Valentine cards made no sense to me.  But my granddaughter had stated, “They’ll know…”

Well, who’s to say?  Maybe they did.  It occurred to me after we’d talked that, Valentine’s Day aside, I’d always sent anonymous, loving wishes to my own two daughters—back when they were growing up, and even as they raised their own children.  And I’ve never thought of that as silly.

At night, after they were asleep, I ‘d whisper in their ears to tell them how much I loved them.  They hardly stirred as I did it, and they never mentioned it later.  And almost every day, to this very moment, when thoughts of them cross my mind, I continue to send silent, prayerful messages their way.  I’ve always believed that, somehow, they would know I was telling them I love them.  Anonymously, as it were.

So, after a lot of thought, I decided my wee granddaughter was right on our long-ago phone call.  It really isn’t such a ridiculous notion.  And you know what?  Even after all this time, I expect I’ll receive another Valentine card in the mail this year from Guess Who?

I’ll know.

_{© J. Bradley Burt 2023}