Around the Bluhmin’ Town

By

Judy Bluhm

The Season of Love is upon us!! Check out the stores and see all the heart shaped candies, cookies and cakes. Buy a bunch of red roses. Maybe champagne. Jewelry is nice too. Grab a card that professes “true love” to that “special someone” in your life. Give the kids and grandkids little heart-shaped sweets, or stuffed animals with red ribbons and bows. We must be “feeling it,” because Americans are expected to spend $29.1 billion on Valentine’s Day.

The “most romantic day of the year” started in the Fifth century as a pagan holiday. Valentine’s Day had its beginnings in Rome, when mid-February marked the annual Lupercian festival, an ode to the God of fertility. It was one huge celebration of sensual pleasures, and it became the season to fall in love and marry. Then Claudius II became emperor and the party stopped. He was suspicious of love (paranoid). He had the notion that romance and marriage only distracted and weakened men (ridiculous) and so to assure quality soldiers, he banned marriage.

A bishop named Valentine, believing in love, met couples in secret places and joined them in the sacrament of matrimony. When the evil Claudius learned of this, he labeled Valentine a “friend of lovers” and had him arrested. Unless Valentine agreed to worship the Roman Gods and stop marrying young couples, he would be executed. Valentine was a man of faith and conviction and would not be swayed by the mad emperor. A miracle happened while Valentine was in jail awaiting his fate. He fell in love with his jailer’s daughter, Asterius. Just before Valentine was executed, he wrote a heartfelt love-letter to Asterius and signed it, “Be mine . . your Valentine.”

I have witnessed love with my horses. My old mare, Angel, got an eye infection that wouldn’t heal and had her right eye removed. With a cataract in her remaining eye, she was effectively blind. But that day when we brought her home from the hospital, she stepped off the trailer, and her stall-mate was waiting for her. A large, white Arabian, Pegasus went over to Angel and nuzzled her face and eyes with his nose. He then walked at her side, leading her around. Together, they conquered darkness. Love is not blind! It shows us the way.

At a garage sale I spotted a beautiful square piece of lace that was lying on a table. It was obviously very old and delicate. I picked it up and an elderly lady came and gently took it out of my hands. “This is mine,” she said sweetly. Then she scolded her daughter for putting it up for sale. The lady told me that her husband wrapped their wedding bouquet in this little piece of lace, when they got married. “I still remember that moment,” she sighed. Love lives in those tender memories.

This week, hold on tightly to a cherished memory, like a small piece of lace. Let love guide you through dark times. Dear Readers, write someone a love note and sign it with the most romantic phrase of all time, “Be Mine . . Your Valentine.”

Judy Bluhm is a writer and local realtor. Contact Judy at [email protected]or visit www.aroundthebluhmintown.com.