February is National Heart Month in the USA

Already the valentines are flooding the card sections, Colombia is hopeful that the annual demand for flowers for lovers will help balance out the export column for the country, and I am sighing my annual sigh of angst for the flowers or cards that don't grace my door. In Colombia, it is in mid-September that "Special Friends or Lover's Day" occurs, so February there is simply a month to recuperate from Christmas and New Year's celebrations and to embrace the quiet because there are no long weekends with tourists.

But in the U.S. it is everywhere - movies, TV, internet, magazines, newspapers - and in schools across the land there are going to be little boys or little girls who, for one reason or another, don't get what they are expecting or hoping for on Feb. 14th and it will, I promise you, leave a lasting memory of what disappointment is all about.

I am personally against doing the card-exchange in schools. It is a chance for the bullies to work their particular kind of wretched behavior on those they have already targeted for abuse, and it is that kind of torture that young children do not need to experience.

Who really benefits from these so-called expressions of love? And why do the schools perpetuate something that does not really teach the students what love is?

John Gardner, Stanford '33 and MA '36 wrote an essay for the Stanford Alumni Magazine in March 1994 entitled 'The Road to Self-Renewal' and if you want to read it in its entirety, here is the link. He wrote, "We build our own prisons and serve as our own jail keepers, but I've concluded that our parents and the society at large have a hand in building our prisons."

His premise is that the roles that get created for us by parents, teachers, our peers and yes, even the bullies, can stick with us for a lifetime until or unless we as individuals take on the task of self-renewal, dealing with the ghosts of the past; failures, traumas, grievances and resentments. These injuries, imagined or real, take their toll both in limitations and frustrations sometimes causing illnesses that further limit us.

Gardner adds, "Life is an endless unfolding and, if we wish it to be, an endless process of self-discovery."

Hearts by Danilo Rizzuti

In this month of February, the U.S.'s national focus on the heart, I hope my readers far and wide will take the time to think about what love really is, and how we are all responsible for our own lives. In the Episcopalian Order of Service, there is a prayer that serves as a reminder to me that I am not perfect, never will be, but I seek His forgiveness and try again to forgive those who have caused me pain.

"Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone." But most especially I have 'sinned' against myself in not letting go of those past ghosts allowing me to be more loving, more giving, more of who I am supposed to be. Forgiveness is not really for the other(s), but for me, so that I am free.

The message of Jesus Christ was "Forgive them for they know not what they do." For me He is the icon of true and untrammeled Love and without pushing my beliefs on those who have their own, many of the religious sects have in their concepts an image or icon that represents the energy of Love.

I hope these words fall on fertile ground for you to renew your contract of living and loving and find your way to forgiveness of Self and that you can celebrate this month of the heart with great joy and love!

A short tale of true love

Love is... going for walks at the lake to feed the ducks every day, even
though your husband can't find the words to describe them.

Although it was nine months ago that a very dear friend was facing the certainty of her husband having to be placed into custodial care, the first awareness of Frontotemporal Dementia came when her beloved began to have difficulty remembering the names of simple things, and that actually seems to have started seven or eight years ago.

But apparently about two weeks ago, he took off in the car and withdrew a large sum of money from the bank. This kind of behavior was the indicator that he could no longer be trusted to stay in the home unsupervised. On the 4th of February, she told me, they drove him to a facility where he can be cared for 24/7. "I told him we were going to see some friends," she said, remarking that she was permitted a therapeutic lie in order to keep him calm. And then she went home alone.

I called her recently without knowing all this had happened and asked if she was up for a visitor. She exclaimed, "You are a blessing, coming to visit me now - how did you know?" I didn't. I live my life with a different sense of guidance these days and impulsively end up in places where I guess I am supposed to be.

So it was that I ended up in Salt Lake City this week, visiting this lovely woman who has been a good friend for many years. "I am a widow without a funeral, a single woman who cannot date, a wife without her husband," she said. We agreed that this long goodbye she has been enduring for all these years still has time on the clock. She doesn't know how long it will tick. "I have these wonderful memories of us together - almost 20 years of marriage - and the day before we were separated, I spent time with him, and he surprised me by telling me that he remembered the first day we met. He hasn't been able to speak of things like this for years! And he told me he loved me."

When we were together last November, I commented that if anyone wanted to know what love was, all they  had to was watch her with him. Her patience, her kindness, her tolerance for the child-like man he has become was remarkable. Now, only two days before the Day of Lovers, February 14, she is unable to be with him because the facility wants him to adjust to his 'new home,' since for the first week he was there he was constantly trying to escape.

Dedicated to my friend and her husband, who was also my
friend and business associate. Can you see the heart in
the clouds, making this evening even more special?

In one of our conversations I said to her, "You will have a chance to talk to him, and I feel sure you will be able to see him soon. He will adapt and you will be able to go and be with him as his loving wife, not a caretaker who has been stressed to the breaking point."

Just a short time ago I received a phone call and she announced, like a teenager, "We talked briefly on the phone and he said he loved me again!" It is heartening to tell this story of love and hope for Valentine's Day and I hope it brings you joy to read about it.