I don’t think the memory of that ever left her, written wordlessly in a scar on her heart.
My mother was not one to wear her heart on her sleeve. Not that she didn’t care deeply about fairness, equality, and being a constructive member of society. She was free with opinions, but kept her own counsel about emotions. She would occasionally drop hints hidden in stories, if we paid attention. As children, we didn’t pay much attention.
One story was about her high school friends, a circle of girls who were very close and did everything together. She remembered every name until her memory failed her before she died, when she couldn’t even name her own granddaughter. But back then, one of those close girlfriends betrayed her, and she was blackballed from joining a high school club. We heard this story more than once, and so I don’t think the memory of that ever left her, written wordlessly in a scar on her heart.
Maybe that accounts for how we celebrated Valentine’s Day. At Marble Elementary school in Michigan, it was celebrated as one of the secular American holidays in 1950’s style. The bulletin boards were decorated for each season: the turkeys drawn in silhouette around our palms and fingers for Thanksgiving were replaced with pink, white, and red construction paper hearts. If you folded over the paper, and cut a shape that was round at one end and pointed at the other, then opened it up, you would have a symmetric heart, or something like it. We took shoeboxes and decorated them too, with a slot cut into the top, and set them on our desks, ready for Valentines.
Valentines came from the five and dime store, a dozen or more in a cellophane wrapper. They would be one-sided cartoon-like pictures, with happy messages: a couple of pieces of smiling fruit with “We’d make a peach of a pair!”, or a cute kitten and “We’d be purrrr-fect together!” Sign your name and it was done. On February 14th, the kids would rush around the room dropping Valentines into the shoeboxes, which we would take home. We then combed through the haul with all the enthusiasm (but minus the sugar) we also used for trick or treat bags at Halloween. Sometimes Valentines were unsigned. I’m sure some kids didn’t get as many as others.
However, I know everyone got at least one. My mother was very clear—we had to give a Valentine to every single person in our class. No one ever gets left out.
Khati Hendry
Your mother was wise Khati, and I think altho bullying is as old as the hills, it wasn’t an open issue then.
It’s heartbreaking to think of the kids who are picked on or ignored, or chosen last for the team, or get no cards from classmates on Valentines Day.
Good lesson from your mother, Khati. I remember those shoe boxes and the hurt some kids felt when they only received a few of those cards while the more popular kids had a box full. Looking back, people were not that into our feelings when we were children.
“No one ever gets left out.” Such an important lesson to imprint on your children. Suzy writes something similar and Laurie, our own Retro teacher, eliminated Valentine’s Day from her pre-school curriculum. Your memory is a poignant and important one, Khati.
I’m so sorry that such a giving and sensitive person as your mom got blackballed, Khati, and I admire her insistence on you giving everyone in the class a card. Your description of that 1950s time brought me right back to my own childhood. Remember wrapping pink or red tissue paper around the shoeboxes?
I see I’m not the only one with those school Valentines Day memories—I hope it is better now.
Khati, thanks for the reminder about the decorated bulletin boards and shoeboxes in ’50s elementary schools. Also very moving to learn about your mother’s experience and the memory “written wordlessly in a scar on her heart.” What a perfect phrase!
What a great message your mom imparted, Khati. So sorry it may have arisen from her own painful experience, but that is often part of learning, right? And you have unfolded your story about her, and then you and your frieends in school, beautifully.
It’s really something how those childhood slights stay with us and feed into who we become. Hopefully, in a good way we become more sensitive to others…like your mother.
Yes, I think you are right. And who am I to say if my story is correct—but as I reflect on life, I see more and more how histories intertwine and create our present. May we all learn and become wiser.
Ah, Khati! I remember the magic of folding a piece of red construction paper in two and producing a symmetrical heart! What joy! I liked the way you delivered the tale of your mother’s sad experience and how resolved it into a teaching moment for her children. Clearly she was a parent who resisted delivering her own pain on her children.
Yes, and—pro tip—if you get creative and make cut designs in the paper, you get a very fancy heart as well. My mother did try to avoid burdening us with her pain, but truth will out sometimes in unintentional ways.
Your writing is taut and spare and commanding. When you use repetition, it has a clear purpose, such as the repetition of “attention” at the end of the opening paragraph: “…if we paid attention. As children, we didn’t pay much attention.” This sets us up as readers to REALLY pay close attention to what comes next. We are going to grasp one of your mother’s stories and not overlook the lesson.