I am very aware that this date is a special day. A day when the postman takes longer to deliver his mail than other days. A day when the cost of a bunch of flowers that last week cost one price but now cost double that.
Am I being cynical? of course, I am but forgive me but I find it very difficult to succumb to what has always been for as long as I can remember a commercial day thought up by the sellers of cards, chocolates and flowers.
Stop being a spoilsport I hear somebody whisper in my ear. I remember being the shy boy of the school class and never expected to be involved in schoolboy romance so possibly my vision is blurred.
I really do hope that for those who see this as a special day of romance it turns out to be just that. In the mood of the day let me relate a true story.
John stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way along platform 6 of Waverly Station Edinburgh. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose.
His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in the Carnegie Library Dunfermline. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes pencilled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful person and an insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous lender's name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort he located her address. She lived in a town further up the coast. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond.
The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and one month, the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. John requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like.
When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting - 7:00 PM at platform 6 Waverly Station Edinburgh February 14th. "You'll recognise me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel." So at 7:00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he'd never seen.
I'll let John tell continue the tale in his own words.
A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit, she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips.
Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had greying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her grey eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her.
This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be, grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment.
"I'm Lieutenant John McEwan, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?"
The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what this is about, son," she answered, "but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!"
It's not difficult to understand and admire Miss Maynell's wisdom. The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive.
"Tell me whom you love," says the well known saying, "And I will tell you who you are."
May your heart be touched with Love this day and may you share your love with those who touch your life this day, and may that love still be yours again tomorrow.
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