powerofritualsblog.com

Valentine’s Day is my most favorite holiday. It is a day when I can express my love and adoration of the people in my life: family, friends, clients. Even my mail carrier gets a Valentine card.

Eleven years ago, on the morning of February 12th, my 15 year old son Andrew and I gleefully ran to the mail box to put our Valentine’s Day cards in for mailing to our family and friends. Little heart stickers were stuck all over the envelope. That night at 10:05 pm, my son lost his life in a car crash just coming home from a basketball game. It took me several years to renew the ritual of Valentine’s Day and put my heart back into it. Because, Andrew was my biggest, sweetest Valentine.

Now, I am back to this sweet yearly ritual and I can find the joy once again in shopping for the Valentine cards, writing sweet notes to people to tell them how much I appreciate their contribution to my life and stick the little red hearts all of the envelope. I still mail the cards on February 12th and it is a very important way for me to get through the day–to celebrate the memory of the ritual I did with my son.

Linda Ann Smith
Co-Author, Power of Rituals for Women
Andrew Barnett Smith’s Mother