A Post-Valentine Story

Last Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2019 is the 8th year of which I celebrated the said occasion without my better half. I become a widow when my husband passed away due to health reasons on September 7, 2011.

This Valentines though I believed my husband serenaded me early in the morning through a song I heard on the radio. After I was done with my early morning rituals (prayer and exercise) and about to take my breakfast, I usually turn on the radio to listen to the news. And guess what? I heard before the newscast was our favorite song by Rod Stewart entitled “Have I Told You Lately”. The following lyrics of the song never cease to amaze me and leave a longing in my heart for my husband…

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there’s no one else above you?
Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do…

There’s a love less defined
And it’s yours and it’s mine
Like the sun
And at the end of the day
We should give thanks and pray
To the one, to the one.

While the song continued to play, I eagerly told my daughters at the breakfast table that what we were listening was their Dad’s and mine’s theme song. They were delighted by my statement and reminisced the good old times with their Dad.

Later on as I contemplated I realized it was not a mere coincidence that our song was played on the radio. It was part of God’s intervention in my life telling me how my husband loved me despite my imperfections. It was also a reassurance that he was constantly watching over us amidst his absence in our lives.

Moreover, the song reminded me of how our love blossomed through the years when we were still together. Ours was not love at first sight. He was not my first love. But he helped me, nursed my first and last broken heart. Our love weathered all odds as there were some members of both our families who were against it. In spite of that he was my best friend and eventually became my one true love. He fulfilled my dream of having a family of my own. Being a product of a broken family, he reassured me that ours will be for a lifetime. However, God has another plan for us; he was taken away from us through his illness. I did not understand at first why it had to happen but later on I learned to surrender everything to God.

For now, my valentines are my two precious daughters and my entire family who loves me unconditionally. I just hope that I will be able to love them heartily in return. Also, I rely on God’s love which is more important than any other love. Jesus suffering on the cross manifested His greatest love to us. And, more than anything else should be enough for me.

On another note, I hope you will find your one true love and will have your own song so that someday you will have something to cherish. For those who already found their true love, nurture it and find time to show how much you care. Let us also be reminded of the importance of God’s love in our lives not only during Christmas and Lenten Season but also during Valentine’s Day.

“True love doesn’t happen right away; it’s an ever-growing process. It develops after you’ve gone through many ups and downs, when you’ve suffered together, cried together, laughed together.” – Ricardo Montalban (www.brainyquote.com)