Beech Tree News Network

There are days when I long for simpler times.  I’m aware of the train of thought that goes something like, “The good old days weren’t really so good; people tend to romanticize those days because they’ve forgotten just how hard life really was back then.”  I want to go on record as one person who didn’t forget.  You don’t forget busting up coal with a sledge hammer when you’re twelve, so your family can have heat for the winter; and you don’t forget living without indoor plumbing and heating water that you poured into a metal wash tub, so you could take a bath; and you surely don’t forget lying awake in an upstairs bedroom in the heat of the summer as the window fan brings in only hot air with a generous helping of humidity.  No, I didn’t forget, and I have never longed to return to those living conditions.
What I long for is getting a heart-shaped box of candy for Valentine’s Day and eating five pieces of cream-filled chocolates in succession without feeling one ounce of guilt.  I don’t think I’ve eaten one piece of cream-filled or any other variety of chocolate without feeling guilt since the collective awareness that the combination of sugar and fat is a lethal cocktail that promotes obesity, which is killing us off at a rate second only to cigarettes.  
I miss simple celebration—the setting aside of time to enjoy the moment without feeling guilty or pushed to move on to the next moment.  I miss sitting at the kitchen table with little paper valentines and a list of my school mates.  I miss checking off each name as I addressed the envelopes, and I miss the satisfaction I felt at the knowledge that I hadn’t left anybody out. 
My growing-up years were an amalgam of opposing ideas that my grownup self has difficulty reconciling.  My stepmom could be very harsh and ready to wash her hands of all of us, but at other times, she was involved and attentive and worked hard to help us fit in and make memories that we could hold on to.  When she was in her celebration mode, she couldn’t be out-done.  No matter how little money we had around Valentine’s Day, she still made sure each of us had a package of valentines and an empty shoe box that we could turn into a card holder.  (We had very few shoes, so I don’t know where she came up with those boxes.  They seemed to just materialize, like Easter egg dye did a couple of months later.)
At the time, it seemed as if my teachers loved Valentine’s Day as much as I did.  Each of the students’ personalized boxes, adorned with paper-doily hearts and glitter, the lids cut with envelope-sized slits, lined the room on table tops, window sills, and any other available flat surface.  We were allowed to personally drop each of our cards into the boxes while we admired each other’s handiwork and filed away ideas for next year’s creations.  There were cupcakes and heart-shaped candies and Kool-Aid, and we stepped from the bus a lot stickier than when we had boarded earlier that morning. 
Once we were home, we knew Mom would have each of us a heart-shaped box of candy that would have to wait until after supper to be eaten.  My parents also got each other Valentine’s candy.  Mom would get Dad a pretty basic box, but my dad went all out for her, bringing in large cloth and ribbon-covered creations, the likes of which would break your heart just to see the cellophane removed from them.  The one that sticks out in my mind was yellow.  The box was covered in yellow satin with a yellow ruffle around the edges and a yellow ribbon with matching rose in the center.  My stepmom kept that box for years.  We all kept our boxes for years.  I wish I still had some of mine just to show my granddaughter.
When my stepmom fell and broke her hip (two weeks after my mother-in-law did), I went to see her in rehab in Taylorsville (where she and my dad live).  It was three weeks before Christmas.  Dad was in the room that day, as well as my niece, Kristy. 
“Kristy is going to bring my Christmas cards so I can get them addressed,” Mom said.
“I don’t know why you think you have to do that,” Dad grumbled, “It’s not like people won’t understand.”
“Let her have it, Dad,” I said, “You know how important things like that are to her.  Celebration has always been important to her.”
I had never spoken those words until that day, but I had always known their truth.  The longer I live, the more I realize that almost everybody has a redeeming truth, regardless of the number of wrongs you can tally up against them. My stepmom’s truth was and is simple celebration.