31 July 2020  - Photograph - Rebecca Stewart

I wrote of a lovely book about Jorge Luís Borges sent in the mail to me by friend Kerry McPhedran here . Today February 15 I write this blog about Valentine’s Day and I will place it in yesterday’s blog vacuum.

I can certainly wish my family (and I have) a happy wish for the day but it is a certain fact that Valentine’s Day is about a loved one with whom one shares a life or, in the case of those thwarted by misplaced arrows, a wishful hope that it might happen or regrets that it did not.

The Borges quote below in Richard Burgin's book Conversation with Jorge Luís Borges put me in a dark mood when I first read it. I thought about it all day yesterday. Yes, I have been cheated of a Valentine this 2022. But there has to be lots happiness in the idea that I had a Valentine for 52 years. I should not demand more in my life.

 That first conversation ended when he said, with the sincerity of a child, “You may win your heart’s desire, but in the end you’re cheated of it by death.”

 After having been married for 52 years my Rosemary died December 9, 2020.