Valentine’s Day traditions are one of those things that seem to grow and change and evolve throughout one’s life. For many, there are the exchanges with grade school friends, with handmade boxes, school time deliveries, and the opening of each individual one, joyfully reading the name and the message. Next came middle school crushes and high school friendships when Valentine celebrations become more intentional and meaningful, with heartfelt notes and promises of forever.
As we grow from children to adults, there are flowers and dinners and years we’d just rather forget that the holiday of love occurs at all. Then, for so many, it happens all over again, as we guide the tiniest of hands to write signatures on the backs of those Hallmark cards, labeling many from a list of classmates or just one for a special friend.
Although the celebration of Valentine’s Day differs in each family, each class, and each school, it is fun to plan some recognition of the event. Heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, a note in a lunch box, a special family dinner with milk in champagne glasses, toasting the day.
One of our favorite Melrose Random Acts of Kindness Day traditions is delivering letters written by school children to elders in our community. We read each letter and match with recipients in our Melrose senior housing. After several years of deliveries, the community managers expect us and look forward to the cards as much as we do. More often each year, our elders reach out, thank little Jimmy or Madison for the picture or words, eager for a little connection, from very young to not-so-young.
So we were thinking: why not make this our very own Melrose Valentines tradition, too? Not just school children this time, but all of us. As you prepare your own celebration of Valentine’s Day, why not include a letter to an elder in your preparations? What if each Kindness Warrior in our community were to write a card or letter to a senior? Just a little something to say have a happy day, we’re thinking of you at this time of love and connection. Let’s do that.
MelroseKind will deliver as many letters and cards as we receive. If you’d like to hear back from the recipient, include a return address. We’ll encourage everyone to respond.
Please drop cards and letters (on or before noon on February 14) into the box on our kindness porch, at Stephanie’s house, 249 Grove Street, Melrose. We will deliver to as many seniors as we have cards to give.
