VALENTINES

After a rather late start to the day and a lazy breakfast I decided to do a little baking and as it will soon be St Valentines day I baked a special batch of heart shaped cookies for some friends of mine. Some are decorated with pink sugar crystals and others with pink rose flavoured icing a decorated with pink and white sugar balls. Tomorrow I shall bake a heart shaped cake for Pa all layered up with fresh cream and strawberry jam.

Often while I am baking my mind wanders away to some strange places, today it wandered many years in to the past and visited two old ladies who lived in our village when I was a child. They had grown up in the reign of Queen Victoria and when I first met them they were well into their seventies. They had been born into a well to do family and as they had never married when their brother inherited the estate he built for them a small house in the village before selling the hall and moving to London.
Here they had lived out their lives through two world wars and had grown old together.

For some reason they took quite a fancy to me and asked my mother to allow me to visit them now and then. Mother considered this in the light of an honour and so I became a regular visitor at their lovely little house. Actually it reminded me of a dolls house as it was perfectly symmetrical and almost all the furniture had been especially made to fit the place. The ladies had in their youth been avid collectors and their sitting room was filled with cabinets full of narrow drawers whose contents were sometimes revealed to me by the elder of the sisters.

One drab grey February afternoon my mother sent me to the sisters house with a batch of fancy cakes to tempt the appetite of the elder sister who was recovering from a severe bout of bronchitis. I had recently learned how to draw a heart shape and as Valentines day was near I made a get well card in the shape of a heart and took it along with the cakes. Ushered in by the younger sister I handed over the cakes and the card,it seemed that the invalid was sleeping and I was asked to stay for tea,pleased I agreed at once and was seated by the fire to make toast while my hostess put on the kettle.

All their cooking was done on an old kitchen range and the cottage had neither electricity or running water . The range was spotless and gleaming black and at its heart the fire seemed like a live thing caged inside. As we ate my card was admired and as soon as she had finished her toast the old lady fetched a large box decorated with decoupage,as she opened the lid I saw that inside were the most beautiful cards I had ever seen.

They were Valentines sent to the sisters in their youth by suitors some of whom had been deemed unworthy and sadly a few who had died , one of these had been the fiancé of they old lady herself and I noticed how her hand shook as she handed the card over for me to see.
Being a well bought up child I had been taught not to ask impertinent questions and the silence lengthened as the fire crackled and the kettle steamed on its trivet.

Suddenly and with a sigh the old lady gathered up the treasured cards and put them back in the box as if she was packing away her memories with them. Many years later I discovered that the young man who had sent the beautiful card had died of typhoid shortly before they were to have married.

She never knew how much I wanted to hug her as I left,but she stooped down to my level and said “Never be afraid of your memories of try to lock them out,happy or sad they are yours forever and in the end they are all you have left.”
I never spoke to anyone about those cards, it had been such a private thing between us but I did remember the old ladies words although it was many years before I fully understood their meaning.

Now that I too am growing old memories that in the past could move me to tears are softened by time and I remember the laughter, and the love and I am grateful for the memory, for as long as I keep it bright those lost loved ones and past times will live forever.