Cupid's Arrow

I love Valentine’s Day. Some people say that it’s cheesy and a cash-grab but I absolutely love it. It’s the time of year when you can see couple’s starting to form in high schools. Spring doesn’t seem so far away and people a just happier.

But my love for Valentine’s Day stems from a much younger age then teen romance and the feeling of Spring being right around the corner. I was four. Staring at the fridge with a dazed longing when a thought came over me which I spoke aloud to my parents, “I want a dog.” My sister was at school at the time and I had just come indoors from the frigid January air. Still bundled up in my hot-pint winter jacket and burning from the change in air the thought possessed me. I remember coming out of my daze and looking up at my parents to see what they thought and they softly laughed and told me that they would think about it.

My next part of this memory flashes forward a couple of weeks to Valentine’s Day. I was sitting in the back driver’s side seat of my parents golden car. My legs were so short that only my feet reach over the end of the seat and the seat belt pushes up against my chin which drove me mad. I didn’t know why I was there, only that I was curious that I didn’t know where we were. We drove and drove to what seemed like forever for a four-year-old when finally my Mom got out of the car and left my father and me to wait. We waited and waited. I could tell that something was off with my Dad. I think it was my first bout of intuition telling me that something exciting was going to happen.

And then it did.

I remember seeing Mom carrying this big, green, suit-case shaped thing and thinking that it was weird for her to carry something that looked so heavy and not have Dad help her at all. She came to the car, opened the back door across from me and put the case down on the seat and said “Why don’t you peak inside…” I leaned forward and stretched myself to look inside the front door of the case and there sat my soon-to-be best friend Cupid. It was instant love. One you hear about and hope that it will happen to you. We were immediate friends. Her dark brown hair was the softest thing I’d ever felt. And her big brown eyes looked up at me with excitement and curiosity. Little did I know that we would grow up together and learn about life from each other. We were soul mates who protected each other and listened to each other’s problems. Our relationship flourished over sixteen years until she had finally run her course. The thought of having her put down still upsets me; but every Valentine’s Day I think back on the time I got to spend with my best friend and feel the comfort I once felt with her by my side.