My husband is a wonderful man and I am lucky because I really believe he truly loves me.  I asked him though to please not buy me flowers for Valentine’s Day because they’re so darned expensive — and I meant it.  I kept telling him we did not have money to burn like that — and I meant it.  He had to work Valentine’s so there was no night out planned; certainly not a romantic date in the works.  When he came home he asked if I’d had a knock on the door.  Puzzled, I said no.  Then he pushed this beautiful arrangement of all different kinds of roses toward me that were in a shiny red vase.  I struggled not to say “I asked you not to” and instead I told him they how very lovely they were.  And then he asked me if I liked the vase.  Glancing down at the metal in my hands I said I thought it was cool because it was metallic.  He told me that he had really looked a lot on line at what they had.  I knew this was his way of trying and I told him I loved all flowers (particularly the smell of lilies) but that on Valentine’s Day roses were truly the best.  “I didn’t want to just get you grocery store flowers,” he said, looking proud and unsure at the same time.  The more I looked, the more I noticed there were sweetheart roses as well as other types of roses I did not recognize — all in colors ranging from red to pink.  Surprisingly, our uncivilized cats managed to leave them alone for an entire week.  Then this morning we were awakened with an ear-piercing shriek followed by inconsolable sobbing and indiscernible wailing.  Jumping out of bed, I was greeted by a series of rose petals scattered in varying degrees.  I’m talking they could have filmed an episode of “The Bachelor” at our house amount of rose petals.  Our little one was in histrionrics and I wondered if I should get her inhaler.  Just about every surface in our home was covered by the silky soft petals.  For once my uber romantic side did not kick in and all I could think was what a mess!  They were trailing down the stairs, strewn all over the formal dining room, littering our little one’s playroom, and leading down into our den.  And that is when I discovered my beautiful St. Valentine’s bouquet had been absolutely decimated by some psychotic cat.  I had a good idea as to whom … a certain wild half Siamese kitten.  He had taken his “kills” and had methodically spread them all over our house.  It bordered on the macabre.  Burk awakened and, sounding strangely like my father, hollered, “That damn cat!”  Meanwhile, over the disbelief of my little one’s red-faced tears and the incredulity of my husband’s red-faced cursing I discovered something … four red roses had not been touched.  I told them both it was OK as I put the few remaining roses back into the vase.  The American romantic poet William C. Bryant once wrote:

“Loveliest of lovely things are they on earth that soonest pass away.  The rose that lives its little hour is prized beyond the sculpted flower.”

It was then that I realized the immense amount of joy they had given me.  Rather than lament their inevitable loss, I looked down at the vase once again and noticed a great surprise — the roses had covered the shape of the vase.  It took life’s messiness to uncover what had lain beneath … a heart.