Image by Luisella Planeta LOVE PEACE 💛💙 from Pixabay
February has never just been about roses for me.
Valentine’s Day comes… and two days later, February 16.
The anniversary.
Eleven years ago, my mother died.
Every year this month feels layered.
There’s the pink and red world outside.
And then there’s the quiet ache that settles in my chest like it knows the calendar before I do.
Grief is strange like that.
It doesn’t shout anymore.
It doesn’t knock me down the way it used to.
But it lingers.
It hums under the surface.
Love and loss live very close to each other.
And maybe that’s what Valentine’s Day really is for me now.
Not romance.
Not pressure.
Not proving anything.
But remembering.
I carry my mother with me in February.
In small ways.
In how I light a candle.
In how I pause longer than usual.
In how I feel everything a little deeper.
There’s a weight to it.
A tenderness.
Some years it feels heavy.
Some years it feels like quiet gratitude.
This year… it feels reflective.
Being alone on Valentine’s Day doesn’t scare me anymore.
After losing someone you love in a way that changes your entire world, you realize something...
