Wayward Valentine

The Story Teller

The Story Teller
Jun 27, 2003
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Wayward Valentine
by Marion L. Wright
Lepanto, Arkansas
I was spending my first Valentine’s Day alone. Just two months earlier, Gerald, my husband of 32 years, had died. I had not been prepared for the terrible sense of loss I felt.
Aware the day would be hard on me, my daughter, Tarra, bought me a pair of balloons, one with a beautiful red azalea inside. But on the way over, the other one had blown out of her car window. “I’m so sorry, Mom,” she said.
I told her not to worry. After all, the single balloon suited me; I felt as if half of me were missing. If you really loved me, God, I thought bitterly, you wouldn’t have taken Gerald away. I went to bed early, relieved the day had passed.
Tarra stopped by again in the morning. As we chatted over coffee I looked out the window. A red-and-silver balloon was bobbing in the wind. “Mom, that’s the other balloon I got you!” Tarra exclaimed. We dashed outside to catch it before it blew away, only to discover it was wound securely to a shrub, as if someone had taken considerable pains to attach it. And Someone-with the help of the angels-had. The message on the balloon said it all: “I love you.
The above article originally appeared in the January/February 1998 issue of Angels on Earth. To subscribe to Angels on Earth, click here.
Submitted by Richard