HAPPINESS: Celebrating Valentine’s Day Online

By Aliker David Martin
Those who bring sunshine into the life of others cannot keep it from themselves- J. M. Barrie, nineteenth century Scottish novelist

In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius established February 14th as a holiday in honor of Saint Valentine in the Roman calendar. Pope Paul VI later deleted it in 1969. I learnt about Valentine day later in life as a day lovers display their affection for each other by buying flowers.
This year just like last year, I am celebrating the day away from my wife. Because of time deference, they will reach Valentines Day while we are still on the eve of the day. So we agreed on an online date as an expression of our love. My most humorous moment was when she reminded me of our first valentine date. I got pissed off because she would not dress up in valentine colors. It was not our style and tradition. My wife is an astute realist, she felt awkward and weird practicing a tradition that she didn’t believe in. I then told her how stressed and ridiculous I felt for the first time when I went to buy flowers. The flowers were not only expensive but also I chickened out when I realized I had to hold the flowers in public; use public means of transport and meet her among her friends. I knew this would generate a lot of negative talk about imitating western lifestyle and our artificial love. She laughed so hard into tears because I had not told her my experience. We certainly agreed this was not our style; we could still express our affection for each other daily like sharing jokes and pictures of our children, caring for each others feelings and continuously professing our love for each other without having to wait for Valentines day and most importantly respecting each other by committing ourselves never to indulge in acts that would bring to disrepute our family pride and dignity.
At the end of the day, I realized I was so happy yet I could not point out particularly why I was happy the whole day. It downed on me how much we were in love with each other and I just had a good conversation with a good friend-my wife. Oliver Wendall Holmes says, “Love is the master key that opens the gate of Happiness”. Therefore,make every day a Valentine’s Day in your relationship. Make it a habit to bring sunshine into someones life and you bring it unto yourself.