Godiva Chocolates

Godiva Chocolates makes something like eighty percent of their sales around valentines day.

I used to know someone.  Everyone thought she was almost always happy and always laughing.  That wasn't real, though.  Her smile was very convincing, but she was almost always unhappy, afraid, and worried about her future.  Not everyone knew what was going on inside her, but she trusted me.  Her smile meant more than gold to me, when I could get it.

Every few weeks, I would overnight a small box of assorted Godiva white chocolates to Memphis because Godiva White Chocolates were sometimes the only thing that made her feel better, even though it never lasted.  

Love doesn't always bring happiness.  I tried with all my strength to lift the darkness that surrounded her life, but all I could manage was an hour or two of sunlight.  Sometimes a few days, then the darkness always came back.  I failed.  Eventually, the darkness became all she had in life.  I shouldn't feel responsible for not fixing that, but I do.  I always will.  Knowing I wasn't responsible doesn't take the ache away. I was the owl man.

"Will chocolate make it better? Just for today?"

"What kind?"

"What kind do you like?"

"You know what kind I like," She said.

"Sleep now.  When you wake up tomorrow, a man will bring you chocolates.  I love you--you know."  

"I know you do."  She said.

"I wish it helped more.  I wish something would help more."

"I know you do." She said.

"My love can't make you well, but maybe it'll make you smile for a day.  I'll keep trying."

"I know you will."  She said.

I didn't keep trying, though.  In time, I gave up on her too.  Sometimes, loving someone that sad can pull the life out of you.  When I look back on it, she was probably pushing me away.  She knew that she was so sad herself that she could never love me back, and in her own way, she didn't want to see me hurt too.  

She smiled and ate her chocolates, and I kissed her head and held her hand.  My love couldn't make her well, but it could make her smile.  I'll take what I can get.

Lost Love

Sometimes, when we have a bad breakup, we feel like we were never loved at all.  Because something wasn't ever-lasting, we tend to believe there was something false or defective about it in the first place.  Maybe it was never real at all.  That's an illusion, though.  A false assumption.

No matter how it ended, there were still nights of flaming passion.  There were still mornings when you saw her eyes before you saw the sun.  There were still days when you went to work, and all she really wanted in the world was for you to have a good day.  There were still days so bad when the only thing in the world that would make you feel better was her voice.  None of those things were false; they just weren't permanent.  Being locked in a moment of time doesn't make things any less real.  In some ways, it makes them so much more real.  

Where I am now, every day I see people coming to visit the person they've loved for the past sixty years and spend time while their lover forgets who they are.   Their love lasts, but their names are forgotten.  Some come to hold hands with the woman who bore them three children while she struggles to breathe, knowing her last day won't be long.

God injected us into the fabric of eternity.  The love of a thousand years lasts but the briefest moment.  It's not your failure when things end because all things end; you will too.  In the span of eternity, a moment is an hour is a decade, is a century, is a millennium.  The love of just one moment lasts beyond the life of our sun; neither will last--in time.