Farewell To February. Hold On To Your Valentine.

It's the month of love, candy, president's birthdays and sweet valentines. We honor, celebrate and whoop it up with chocolate, flowers, date nights and mushy cards.

Vector by Sannare - depositphotos.com

Even with the leap year and longer month that brought the unusual "29th" of February, we must say good-bye, at last.

But, bid our Valentines farewell, we won't. Most of us shouldn't. Those of us who live in marriage land would do well to hold on tight to our lovers!

At 39 years of marriage, I often campaign for the institution. Not because it's been continually happy and fulfilling, but because I believe in the bond, the knot, the covenant. And also, darn it, because I really love my husband. Marriage is the bedrock of a country; the glue of society.  It is the deep-seated security of children and creates more stable and productive citizens.

Some call marriage a mystery. Some call it an art.

When my mother moved from Florida to San Diego in 2002, one of her paintings didn't survive the trip. A corner of the canvas already peeling off the frame, by the time it reached California, it had crumpled into a fetal position. Once an impressionistic swirl of forest greens and earth tones depicting "A Mid-Summer Night's Dream," it now lay as a shapeless pile of paint and burlap.


Ruel Crompton Tuttle, 'Uncle Rulie' to my mother and the family portrait artist, created a trio of scenes from Shakespeare's play, including "Puck" which still lives on my brother's bedroom wall. But this one, hurt and hopeless, was headed for the trash.

In an effort to resuscitate the ailing artwork, mom drove it to the Balboa Park Museum. Can the picture be saved? As damaged as it was, refurbishing would only cost a few hundred dollars. But, for some strange reason, none of us made the effort, nor paid the price for restoration. And no one went back to the museum to get it.

Fifteen years later, we find this formerly abandoned painting online, intact, restored, beautiful. And going for a pretty penny. Our negligence was someone else's gain - a vivid lesson in perseverance, or the lack thereof.

This story could well be applied to people, instead of paintings.

How many of us deem the damaged relationships as discards? We mark a marriage remnant as irreparable. We declare "I'm done," when with a some effort and investment, the marriage could regain it's former value. It could be an exquisite work of art. Instead, we prematurely abandoned a masterpiece in disguise.

I've seen couples heal despite the betrayal of infidelity. Still, many leave for the most trivial offenses.

So, on the heels of February, here's to forever love.
Messy and marvelous love
Lush and lack-luster love
Exhilarating and exasperating,
Enduring love.