For E>>>From J

[This post is not from E, your wise and beautiful hostess.  Instead, this one is for her, from her husband, who apologizes for temporarily hijacking the blog.]

Happy Valentine’s Day, my love. 

I know that neither of us has had much use for Valentine’s Day as a holiday.  (At least that’s what we’ve always said.  And I hope you really meant it.  I hope you weren’t agreeing with me in attempt to use reverse psychology and subtly persuade me to invest in roses and candy hearts.  If so, then my psychology must be too rudimentary to have a reverse gear.  It never pays to be too subtle.)

Anyway, I don’t think I need the excuse of the feast day of an obscure Roman saint to tell you how much I love you.  If you don’t already know, then you haven’t been paying attention.  But I’ll say it again, “I love you, my most wonderful wife.”

I recall that my grandfather (Donald Buchanan) gave to my grandmother (Alice Hadley) an anniversary gift that included a framed quotation from one of Mark Twain’s letters.  In this letter, Twain reflects with pleasure on his first four weeks of marriage:

If all one’s married days are as happy as these new ones have been to me, I have deliberately fooled away 30 years of my life.  If I were to do it over again, I would marry in early infancy instead of wasting time cutting teeth and breaking crockery.

I, too, count as wasted time all those years before I had the good sense to marry you.  You have brought me adventure, laughter, companionship, affection, support, wisdom, interesting ideas, good conversation, and a boatload of children I adore.  I shudder to think what I might have missed if I had missed you.  Happily, you didn’t let that happen.

And so, happy Valentine’s Day, my darling and my best friend.