The Power of Love

February 14, 1975

February 14, 1975

I turned around when I heard running coming from the hallway and gave a confused look. I stood up from my seat at the kitchen table and walked to the doorway of the room. "What is that?" I mumbled to myself.

I started to laugh at myself for getting nervous when I saw KJ running to me. He was still in his pajamas and he was smiling- like always- and carried something in his hands. When he reached me, I got down on my knees so he could reach me easier. When he got to me, he jumped to hug me, trying to wrap his little arms around me. When he let go, he held out what he'd been carrying in his hands. "Happy Val-n-time Day, Mama," he smiled.

I smiled and gently took what he had in his hands. I picked him up and walked over to the couch and sat KJ down next to me. What he handed me was a heart cut out of red construction paper. It had a drawing of three stick figures- a man, a woman, and a small boy- and Happy Valentine's Day written in Keith's handwriting. "Wow," I smiled, "Did you make this, KJ?"

KJ smiled proudly and nodded. "Yeah."

"Did you draw these people?"

"Yeah... me, you, daddy." He pointed to each stick figure as he said who was who, then pointed to the words. "Daddy did that."

"Did Daddy help you cut the heart?"

"Yeah, Daddy did that. But I did the pitcher." He had tried to say picture, but it came out pitcher.

"Aw, thank you, baby. I love it," I smiled. I kissed KJ on the side of his forehead, which made him start to giggle, which then made me smile.

A moment later, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt someone sit down on my other side. I looked to my left and saw Keith holding back a laugh, obviously from making me jump.

Some things never change, I swear. But in this case, I don't care one hundred percent that part of him never changed.

"Happy Valentine's Day," Keith smiled and kissed me. I kissed back and smiled when I pulled away. We both looked at KJ, who covered his eyes with both of his hands and had his tongue sticking out. Every time he would do that- or nearly everything he did, actually- I would either smile or chuckle. I couldn't really figure out why I would, it just happened. I always thought "oh, probably cause he's my son" or something, I don't know. I'm just odd.

Keith went over to the end table and took something out of the cabinet. I have a confused look as he came back and sat back down next to me on the couch. He held out his hand and there was a red envelop. "It's not as creative as KJ's," he said, "But it ain't terrible."

I took the envelope, opened it and took out the card. On the front was a heart drawn in a crayon and Happy Valentine's Day written in the same handwriting as KJ's paper heart. I felt bad about it, but still chuckled at how everything was pretty much written in crayon- that is how children will affect you, I promise, there will be more crayons that pens in the house. I opened the card and a bunch of printed photos fell out onto my lap.

I picked up the photos and began to look through them. All the pictures were labeled by year and some of them also had the month and- depending on certain events- the exact date. There was a picture from every Christmas that we had been going out for when we were teenagers, every birthday, and everything else in between. A lot of the pictures were even from before Suzie ran off with a whole group of hippies.

Suzie had ran off with the hippies once her brother was seriously injured in Vietnam. It happened in either 1968 or 1969. All I can remember that she wasn't at our wedding cause she had ran off by then, so she had gone with them before August 1969. But since her brother had been seriously injured, she started to really question the point of war and started saying that it did no good. Then with time, since he hadn't really gotten better at all, she started to talk badly about people who were in the military, both in other countries and in America. Not long after that was when she packed her bags and met up with the local hippies, who were going to California. None of us had heard from her since, and every time there was something bad about hippies on the news, we always got a bit worried that maybe she had got hurt. Even though none of us agreed with the hippies way of thinking, she had still been our friend for a long time and we still worried about her- especially cause she was only about eighteen or something when she ran off.