Bustling around in the kitchen, my bride of forty-one years is baking chocolate chip cookies. She is planning her usual loving welcome for family and friends who will visit us next week.
Across our many years together, my Valentine has brought her love to each of our homes, to each of our children and their spouses, to each grandchild, to our family, to countless friends, to strangers, and to me. Up in the cold Midwest, three other lovely women will reflect on their memories of love on this special day. My mother’s memory may reach back as far as ninety-two of her ninety-five years, to the days when her mother wrapped Love’s joy around her. She, in turn, did the same for her husband, for my two sisters, for my brother, and for me.
The gifts of Love are the only ones that matter. These gifts are great, endless & the hope-filled reason for our lives. Today, like every day, caregivers send our their loving gifts not only to their families, but to their co-workers and to their patients…
Today, on Valentine’s Day
May Love reach out to you & pass through you
May Love circle within you in all her glory
sending arrows of light & waves of warmth
through your tired soul.
May Love’s light & warmth refresh, renew &
redeem you.
May you live Love’s strength
& joy each minute of each hour of every day,
both now and always.
Happy Valentine’s Day to Caregivers Everywhere,
& to YOU!
–Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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