Valentines from the dearly departed
Within the past year I have lost several old loves, all within a short time; the ubiquitous hearts of Valentine's Day remind me of them. When I learned of each I felt a pang, for they were all good men, or well on their way when we crossed paths in our late teens and twenties. One was my first husband, a gentle hippie when we married at age 22 and parted three years later; he had a sudden heart attack, when alone at home. Another was an entrepreneur whose unerring aesthetic sense was a gift that I carry to this day; he died after a stroke. The third, for whom cigarettes were so present that I can't recall ever seeing his face without a rollie clamped in his mouth, died of lung cancer, no surprise. I thought of them for weeks, remembering moments that I had unknowingly retained. The Smoker and I took a starlit trip on a ferry, watching the northern lights arc over Lake Michigan. On Valentine's Day he traced a heart with our initials inside on a frost-glazed window. The Ent...
