Some well-deserved pandemic valentines

For all but the very old, this is the first Valentine’s Day we’ve celebrated in the middle of a pandemic. And how do we do that since we’re masked and at home most of the time? We can start

by drawing a big red heart on a piece of poster board the way school children do when they have a project. Inside the heart we can write the names and occupations of people who deserve some

Valentine’s thanks and affection. We should begin with hospital nurses, of course, and anybody who has slogged through this pandemic with grace and professionalism, holding the hands of sick

strangers and reassuring their loved ones at home as though they were family members, which they become for a few weeks on FaceTime. Then there are teachers who’ve taught in person, then

switched to online, then masked up and gone back to the classroom again. “You learn to do the dance steps,” one said, “whatever the dance is that day.” The small business owners deserve a

Valentine, too. They’ve shut down, opened back up, put up signs explaining COVID rules, borrowed money to pay staff, cut their own salaries to nothing. Some made it. Some didn’t. But they

all tried hard. We see the shells of their dreams lining the streets and highways. Restaurant owners deserve Godiva chocolate hearts. They’ve pushed tables apart, then put them out on the

patio, warming customers with overhead heaters. Curbside pick up is the new normal. They’ve endured insults from customers who don’t want to mask up. Still, they carry on. My favorite coffee

shop has been in business for 44 years, so they didn’t let a little thing like a pandemic shut them down. They take phone orders only and have a small door slot for customer pick up. Since

everyone is masked, they have to ask even regular customers their name. You can see a smile in their eyes when they see it’s you. They know you like your French Roast whole bean. Volunteers

should get a Valentine’s card. They made face masks all summer, delivered them all fall, and now some make sandwiches — egg salad and tuna are favorites— to hospital workers on break. School

children write thank you notes to them, learning the valuable lesson of appreciation for other people’s work. Parents working from home deserve lots of Valentines. They’ve done Zoom

meetings with a baby in their lap or a kitten on their shoulders. They’ve learned algebra again so they can help their children with formulas. They remember when meetings were held around a

big table with doughnuts in the middle. It seems a lifetime ago. Let’s give Valentine thanks to the people organizing the vaccination sites, like the man with his clipboard in the parking

lot; the woman doing the paperwork; the person sticking the needle in your arm and the people watching over you as you sit the required 15 minutes afterward. As for those who denied the

virus was real as it grew across the country and the world, there are no “I told you so” shots or those that match you up to your political party. The vaccines are based on science. They may

not be perfect, but they’re all we’ve got right now. If you’re lucky enough to get one, sit down and hold out your arm. Of course we should send a Valentine to those loved ones closest to

us. We signed on for riches or poverty and sickness or health. All these years later, that includes pandemics, too.