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 Entrepreneur, who always visited with treats for my Burmese and a few new record albums, gave a valentine to both me and the cat. The Hippie and I spent three Valentine's Days together; on one, he cooked a crock-pot stroganoff that reduced to scorched sludge because he set the temperature to high for eight hours, so dinner was a baguette, potatoes, and a bottle of Mateus.

I wonder if I loved them as persons, or conflated my feelings with the rhapsodies of romance, but this was our youth, so I didn't parse the difference—we had said, "I love you", and meant it. "Was he the love of your life?" my friend Rachel asked, when I spoke of the Entrepreneur. "No", I replied, "nor was I his, but he was like no one else."  

The partings, with the exception of the Hippie, were not dramatic breakups, more like a mutual letting go at the end of a dance. Each eventually created other memories with partners who appreciated the same qualities I had. 

My friends are losing their parents now, along with relatives from that generation. When I write to reminisce about them, most of the time I say that the loss is especially deep because no one loves you like a parent; however, when anyone who loved you dies, it's a sorrow.

The number of persons who loved me is finite, and though some are still here, I'm suddenly down three and that's not good. "Love" includes all variants, from romantic attachments to platonic friends; from humans to animal companions. I miss that cat more than many boyfriends.

Lenny Bruce once said, "There are never too many I love yous"—a departure from his usual acerbic wit, and wise. And, I thought, these losses remind me to offer that "I love you" to those still here.