Dusting Off a Valentine from the Family Archives!

Dear Mom,

Thanks. Thank you for saving every card I ever made for you. And thank you for carefully taping them in to scrapbook after scrapbook. Preserving them as if they were meant to go to the Smithsonian someday.

What you actually created, as I now look at all your efforts forty-some years later, was enough “memories” to fill four big boxes. Big. So big, in fact, that I’ve had to rent a storage unit for them. You see, I can’t throw them away .

So I look through them every so often. When I’m grabbing snow tires out of storage. Or putting the Christmas decorations away for another year. And once in a while I find something that takes me right back to some of those insecure years I went through as a kid. Like when I thought I stunk at writing. But I knew no one would tell me the truth.

Case in point: This Valentine’s card I made for you when I was 10.

You could have tossed this one, Mom.

Scary thing is, I actually remember making it. And thinking it was pretty good.

So here’s my redo. 40 years later:

I’m not going to write a long verse. For if I did, I’d make it worse!

Happy Valentine’s Day Mom. You’re still my favorite.