Never was I so happy that my mother had long feet as the week before Valentine’s Day. Mrs. Strand sent us home from Washington Elementary to retrieve a shoe box. I opened the closet to my mother’s neatly stacked 11 narrows and my heart raced. 

I sat with my beautiful box from Herberger’s atop my desk. I felt badly for those with only sizes seven or eight. Of course we’d all get the same amount. We were told to make Valentine’s for everyone in the class. But in my large box, none would have to be shoved, or damaged. 

We spent hours the day before. Well, some of us did. A lot of the boys finished in five minutes. I took my time. Cutting each heart, in reds and pinks and whites. Folding strips of paper to make springs, so the hearts could leap (just as mine felt with all this craft paper.) Never was I so prepared to receive all the “be mines,” as I was with my mother’s shoe box. And how appropriate that she gave me the vessel, as she was the one who taught me to love.

Yesterday, making the cookies, the springs of my heart jumped throughout our French kitchen. I graded the frosting from white to pink to red. I applied the decorations. My love could not be rushed, shoved or damaged. My mother saw to that. Sees to it still.