February 14th

I've been thinking all day of Valentines with you, my sweetheart, in 2009. Our trip "to the snow" - to Lake Tahoe with your folks. We drove up into the mountains after your last class, in your car- everyone else had gone the day before. The drive was lovely and the whole weekend was wonderful. It was magic then. We'd just discovered Bon Iver, and we sang the songs to each other full of tears and passion, in the fullest bloom of true true love. We rode a snowmobile together, you taking your turn at the wheel first with me holding onto you behind, and you were, as ever, fearless. We cooked delicious meals in the enormous kitchen of the gorgeous house your dad had rented, played board games in the dining room, watched "La Strada" in the basement screening room, pulled giant icicles off the snowed-in back porch, napped on the lower bunk bed in my room. The day before we left SF, we'd walked past a window display of Valentines-themed lingerie. You saw a pink-polka-dot-heart-on-black set of bra and panties, and mentioned how cute you thought they were. So I sneaked back while you were teaching your class and bought them for you, handing the gift-wrapped box to you in the car, my eyes full of love. We stopped on the way up for gas at some point and I bought you a hot chocolate (coffee for me) and a pair of Valentine sunglasses. I embarrassed you a little when I asked the cashier if she'd ever seen so beautiful a girl as you. On the last day, after we packed up and everyone except your mom and dad and you and I had left, they told me, with you chiming in, the full story of your double-organ transplant, the surgeries that saved and changed your life (and mine too, now) just the year before you and I met. We drove back through the mountains in your battle-scared blue Prius, stopping at a roadside pass to have the chains taken off the tires. We'd gotten 60 inches of snow the day before. Hours later, we'd be in sunny NorCal again, your dad pulling a couple of tangerines from the tree in your backyard and handing me one. "You're a much better driver than Summer," he said. "Don't tell her I said that." My darling, it's Valentines and these are some of my thoughts. I miss you so. I ache to be with you. Still, I feel you with me. Help me do things right, won't you? And bring me to you, come for me soon. With all my love, my little sweetheart... xM