Yesterday I saw a heartwarming social media picture (above) that I wanted to share. It’s of Chelsea, a family friend, smiling alongside her daughter, Emigh, in front of hundreds of cheerful flower bouquets they helped arrange for the second annual “Valentine’s Day Widow Outreach” in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The “Valentine’s Day Widow Outreach” event began in 2021 when florist Ashley Manning oversaw 121 floral deliveries to area widows, whose names were provided through Instagram friends. This year the event really blossomed, with at least 400 deliveries scheduled. Great job, Ashley. And thank you, Chels and Emigh, too, for volunteering to spread a little joy where it’s especially needed.
That’s how you love big.
Stories like the one above remind me that, depending on the stage of life we’re experiencing, our reactions to Valentine traditions will vary.
My own personal Valentine’s Day this year will be a lighthearted time to enjoy being spoiled with flowers and chocolates from my favorite guy of 40+ years. Rice and I will then ice the cake by spoiling our grandkids similarly.
Our granddaughter’s almost four. She’s enamored with Elsa and Anna and Olaf. I can already see her eyes shining big when she receives our little Valentine gift this afternoon. Our grandson? He’s almost ten. He groused for a week about exchanging Valentines with classmates, and the care he put into making his Valentine box was amazing. And by amazing, I mean he grabbed an ugly old shoebox and a box cutter, cut a slot where cards can be inserted, and voila, his box was ready to go. Yes, he’ll enjoy receiving candy alongside his sister this afternoon. But his expression of gratitude will be different than hers. It will likely remind us he is in fourth grade and already too cool for school.
I guess there are different ways to love big?
Once upon a time, the Rice family loved big by sending out annual greetings, usually to commemorate the New Year. I hadn’t thought about that tradition for years until a visit with Colorado friends last fall. During that visit, our friend Helen pulled out a New Year’s card we’d sent in the 1990s. (Talk about loving big, she saved it!) It got me thinking, maybe the time had come to get on it again. So here we are, 2022-style (above). Loving big again. Sending you Valentine’s greetings, my friend.
My 2022 Valentine’s greetings caper has turned out to be bittersweet. As I searched online for old friends’ addresses, I was shocked in some cases to discover obituaries instead. So many had passed away. An acquaintance from elementary school...a former co-worker...a former co-worker’s spouse...a couple old church buddies from back in our “Young Couples Club” days...friends we once knew in college.
Granted, I’m old enough that I shouldn’t be shocked when an occasional peer passes on. Still, I am. Maybe what stuns me more is how random it all seems. A 90-year-old matriarch outlives her children while a 40-year-old father of teens passes away. But if life is random, death is often even more so. None of us knows when our last breath will come.
So love big.
Not gonna lie, loving big comes with its own bittersweet P.S. The deeper we love, the more intensely we hurt when our heart gets broken. And inevitably, hearts get broken. We can try to mend them, but, of course, they’ll be broken again. The cycle repeats. On our worst days, we might wonder why we keep trying.
I don’t know the answer, but I suspect it’s tied to loving big. Something has to fill those cracks in our broken hearts. Why not let it be light and love?
This past week, writer Mary Kay Andrews lost her 39-year-old daughter, Katie. In her grief, she shared something lovely on social media that struck a deep chord. She said, “People keep asking what they can do for me. Katie would say, find someone who needs a hug or a sandwich or a smile. Be kind.”
In other words, carry on. Love big.
Hugs ~ J
In 2019, I started the practice of choosing my own special WOTY, or Word of the Year. I heard about it on a podcast called Happiness with Gretchen Rubin. The idea is to choose a word or phrase as a personal theme, or goal, for the year—something to help you stay focused. In fact, that’s the word--focus—I choose for my very first WOTY back in 2019.
In 2020 I chose the word cultivate. It marked my first year of retirement, and I had so many creative and cultural projects I wanted to...well, cultivate. Of course, 2020 dealt us the pandemic with its lockdown and travel restrictions and constant uncertainty. I kept thinking, surely things will get better soon, but COVID-19 just kept on giving. Is it any wonder I chose hope for my 2021 WOTY?
Thinking about a WOTY for 2022 sent me down a few Internet rabbit holes. That’s how I discovered the American Dialect Society (ADS) has selected a WOTY for the English-speaking world every year since 1990. Granted, the ADS’s WOTY is different in that it’s selected after the fact, to sum up the preceding year in a word or phrase. Definitely, some of the ADS’s choices were telling. Here are some examples:
1992: Not!
1998: e- (as in e-mail or e-commerce)
1999: Y2K
2001: 9-11
2006: plutoed – (as in demoted or devalued, like what happened to my favorite planet, Pluto)
2008: bailout
2009: tweet
2015: singular they (as a gender-neutral pronoun)
2017: fake news
2021: insurrection
Isn’t it amazing how one little word can bring to mind so many memories of a time from the past?
I don’t kid myself for a minute that my WOTY list conveys anywhere near as much depth or history as the ADS’s—or Merriam-Webster’s, which began its own WOTY list in 2003, or Oxford University Press’s, which started a year later.
Still, I can’t seem to quit my list.
On Christmas Day 2021, I still hadn’t picked my word for 2022, even as I sat for three hours in WellStar’s Urgent Care waiting to test for Omicron. The latest variant had hit some family members just in time to ruin holiday plans, and, to be honest, I was pissed.
Yet as I sat in the WellStar waiting room, I also reminded myself I was fortunate...that I still got to celebrate the holiday with Rice...that the virus was quicker and gentler this round...that the frontline workers were kind and professional and healthy even as they, like COVID-19, just kept on giving. Sitting there reminded me that how I frame things matters, that I can add up my grievances and grouse, or I can count my blessings and savor them.
So here’s the thing. I've decided I'd best be re-framing like a mad woman about now.
And here's the other thing, in case you don't already know. My 2022 WOTY is lucky. What’s yours?
Cheers ~ Jan
It’s that most wonderful time of year again. For some. And, oh, how I envy the folks who love the holidays (aka Christmas for some but not all of you all). You know who you are, you souls who relish every tiny candy sprinkle of the season...every carol sung...every holiday party attended.
Cheers to you, my friends, who make the holidays glitter, by:
buying such a huge (and fresh!) Christmas tree that it’s neater and easier to saw it apart when the new year arrives rather than try to remove it whole.
wrapping gifts like it’s an Olympic sport for which you have no intention of winning anything less than a Gold.
gathering the multi-generation family in coordinated outfits for the holiday pic, which you get developed, printed, and sent as a holiday card before the ides of December.
organizing a family bake-off, complete with matching aprons, photographs and memories, and delicious goodies for everybody to take with them.
hosting an annual Christmas brunch, table spread with delectables and topped with decorated cake-pops, house sparkling with trees decked out in tribute to a love of Disney, wine, a White House visit, and I can’t remember what else!
planning a family surprise that includes a pre-holiday cruise followed by a trip to Disney and culminating back by the family tree on Christmas day.
Woo-hoo! And whew!
To all of you who do the holidays proud like that, please know this: I admire you and wish you glad tidings and blessings. I appreciate your sharing your zest for the season and hope you enjoy every well-deserved moment.
To my other friends—the ones more like me, okay?—who may have a little less spirit this time of year.... Well, hugs to us, too, even as we find ourselves:
wrapping gifts, if we exchange them at all, in plain brown paper or ready-made bags.
decorating when or however we can, with or without a tree, maybe with lights and ornaments, perhaps with just the stress of the season, because, hey, why not?
smiling for pictures—maybe a selfie?—even if the whole family won’t be gathered and we may have to Photoshop someone(s) in.
gorging on store-bought goodies because we didn’t bake anything ourselves.
spatting over what to have and when to serve the holiday meal.
continuing to squabble over even sillier stuff—like the nutritional contents in popcorn—and growing frustrated enough to maybe even call our partner an ass.
planning for future holiday adventures, because, yes, it’s a stressful time, but what would life be without a little Christmas? (Or Festivus, Kwanzaa, or Boxing Day?)
Regardless of how or what you’re celebrating this December—whether you’re an elf who can’t get enough, a Grinch who can’t get away fast enough, or someone who falls in between and likes just enough—happy holidays!
Cheers ~ J
