A leafy mystery plant just off my patio is the sole survivor of Valentines Day 2006, like a cockroach population after widespread nuclear devastation. When my most memorable February 14th hit, I was sobbing into the phone at my almost-ex-boyfriend, trying to fend off one of my roommates’ attempts to wrestle my Nokia away from me.
I met the mystery plant, which I subsequently named Fred, at WalMart about a week beforehand, and it took the expertise of an artistic friend and no fewer than three hours of searching Chinese characters online to repot him into a beautiful, hand-painted dish personalized for the occasion. Fred, along with the box of Ferrer Rocher truffles I narrowly avoided eating in the week preceding, was doomed to be my then-boyfriend’s gift for Valentine’s Day. It was our fourth one together, he had already killed a cactus and a square of zen grass from the last couple years, and the WalMart plant attendant swore Fred couldn’t be killed by anything less dramatic than nuclear war. Fortunately for Fred, in case she was mistaken, she wasn’t able to offer the same guarantee on our relationship.
We broke up sometime between one and two a.m., and I think I cried next to Fred until about seven. My new ex thought I would be miserable on my own–for which he was very sorry–my roommate worried my eyes might be eternally puffy, and my family strongly suspected I would end up an old cat lady instead of an old leafy plant lady. For my own part, I thought my world had ended.
Fortunately, we were mistaken. Valentine’s Day 2006 was my favorite to date. My eyes were down to almost normal size by the time I left for the party that night. I abandoned the empty seat of my plus one to meet a new group of friends, and the one I thought really was the one turned out not to be the one for me at all. I had dinner at the Irish pub he thought was too far to drive after work, made a decision to join the salsa group he wouldn’t try, and realized sometime in the middle of it all that I was having a great time–no plus one required.
A few years later, when he outgrew his second pot, I put Fred in the garden outside my window, and he reminds me of how I met my best friend, started salsa, and cultivated a taste for Irish food that spawned a trip to Ireland the following year. Now, when I’m with someone on Valentine’s Day, I hope the evening goes as well as that one, and when I’m not, I remember the night Fred was the perfect Valentine’s date. I keep him well-watered under the shade of the evergreen in my yard, but I haven’t heard from the ex boyfriend who started it all for several years, so I harbor no guilt for keeping my Valentine for him. I don’t regret eating the truffles, either.