Love Lies Bleeding

Barbara and I go to our local grocery store – Wegmans - almost every day. Wegmans is a fancy place (if you haven’t been, it is kind of like Disneyland for food), but we don’t shop there because it is fancy. We shop there because it is less than a half mile from our house. It has become part of our routine to get Justin on the bus and then head to the store to do the day’s shopping (we find that shopping as we go for meals reduces food waste).

Last week was Valentine’s Day. Because of our daily store visit routine, we were there on the day itself, and the day after as well. On Valentine’s Day, there were bright displays of flowers, a station where strawberries were being dipped in chocolate, and all manner of cards, decorations, and goodies in varying shades of pink. There were cards, balloons, and bottles of rose. It was beautiful and festive and looked like love (at least the store-bought version). There was light and hope and sweetness – both literal and metaphorical.

The next day all evidence of Valentine’s Day was gone. The flowers were back in their place, the strawberries sold or in storage, and the cards nowhere in sight. There were a few decorated cookies and some bottles of rose. On an endcap near the back of the store there were some remnants of Valentine’s Day, marked down for quick and final sale. All that had been bright and alive and full of color the day before had faded, pushed out to make way for the green of St. Patrick’s Day.

It occurred to me seeing all this that love is easy, or at least easy-ish, when everything is pink and fresh and bright. But what happens when love falters? How do you respond when things fall apart?

Valentine’s Day is great. Real love survives the day after.