The Valentine's Express

I don't remember my first Valentine's Day as a widowed mom.

I do remember a growing dislike for February that became an aversion to all things Valentine before 10 years of singleness had passed.

Just about the time post-Christmas blues faded into winter doldrums, reminders of Valentine's Day filled the airwaves and storefronts. Local DJs announced competitions seeking the ultimate Mr. Romeo. Teddy bears and chocolate hearts visually assaulted me in the grocery aisles and convenience stores. Nauseated by such reminders, I purchased cards and candy for my elementary-age boy's classmates, then I went into hiding.

It didn't help that I got pulled over as I drove to pick up my boys from school one Valentine's Day. The cop only wrote me a warning, but with heartthrob day in full swing, I just cried.

Another year, my latest crush called, forgetting it was the Big "V" Day, and clarified that he had no romantic feelings for me. I cried again and began counting down the days till middle-school rules limited parties so I wouldn't have to deal with "it" invading my home ever again.

Then my oldest son, Nathan, came home with an assignment. Early in the year, an older parent warned that the Valentine's box com-petition could get fierce. I shrugged it off. Who cared about Valentine's Day anyway? Certainly not this single mom.

But Nathan did.

All aboard!

As we hurried through the grocery store with only days to go, Nathan asked, "Mom, when are we going to make my Valentine box?"

"I don't know," I replied, wheeling my cart away from the red-heart aisle.

He ignored my diversion. "I know! Let's make a box shaped like a train."

"A train mailbox?"

"Yeah, a train box!"

I sighed. There was no getting out of the project, no ignoring the big day.

My thoughts drifted back to his daddy. Before a brain tumor took his life, the talented artist would have known how to make a winning box — a winning train box. Something stirred in me. It was time to tackle my least favorite holiday in locomotive style.

We stopped by the craft store and headed for the red, white and pink aisle. My stomach didn't turn. Once home, we gathered colored foam sheets, a glue gun, scissors and an old shoe box. Then we discussed various ways we could complete the project.

Tiny bits of foam fell to my kitchen floor as an engine took shape. Cardboard offered support for a roof. My son's little hands and my big ones cut lettering that spelled Valentine's Express.

As we finished the box, we decided to set it on a post. After creating a 3-foot pillar out of cardboard, we glued the train box to one end and fashioned a base. When the creation stood without toppling over, Nathan dug out our battery-operated train and arranged all the curved track pieces into one big circle. Then he found wooden sticks and green construction paper and made tree trunks and leaves to fill the space between the track and the post.

The final product surprised me. My kitchen was a mess and my living room floor a mosaic of construction paper remnants. But together we'd overcome one more childhood hurdle — without the artist daddy we missed so much.

In this together

Two years later, we spent Valentine's Eve building a green helicopter box for my other son, complete with a rotating propeller and landing gear. My strong-willed child and I argued a bit more about how best to complete the design, but the memory still reminds me of the love I learned to value when tributes to red hearts and romance taunted me.

Over time, this new kind of celebration had snuck in from an unexpected place: my heart. For years, I'd allowed the 14th of February to remind me that I was alone in parenting. But as my boys and I worked together and overcame life's many challenges — like creating blue-ribbon Valentine's boxes — I realized there was a lot of love in my home to celebrate.