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I was the tender age of sixteen and my husband was only seventeen when we were married in 1966 in Welch, West Virginia. There weren't many jobs available in our small town. We had been married only two months when my husband found out that Trailways Bus Lines was taking applications for various positions.
My husband drove one hundred miles to Roanoke, Virginia, to apply for a job with the bus company. They contacted him the next week to come back to take a test that was one of the requirements for being hired. So once again, he drove the one hundred miles to take the test. A few weeks later, he was notified that he had been accepted to a position as an apprentice mechanic. This offer was a great opportunity for us, but I was heartbroken when I found out that the job was in Roanoke and that we would have to move. We knew no one who lived there. It was very hard for me to move so far from my family and friends at such a young age. We found a small furnished apartment, and I was lucky to find a job as a sales clerk at Woolworth's during the day, but my husband was scheduled to work from midnight to 8 a.m. So as he came home from work each morning, I was getting ready to leave to go to work.
Naturally, we had very little money, so when Valentine's Day came around that first year, I knew we couldn't afford to buy anything for each other. I felt so bad that I wouldn't be able to buy him a present - not even a card.
After he left to go to work the night before Valentine's Day, I couldn't sleep. So I decided to stay up and make a Valentine's Day card for him. I didn't have any construction paper, so I had to use regular notebook paper. I worked so hard to compose a poem for him. I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn't seem to put it on paper. It took me most of the night, and by the time he came home the next morning it was done!
I had made a valentine for my valentine. I felt foolish and childish as I handed him my homemade valentine, hoping that he wouldn't laugh at it. I held my breath and watched as he opened it and started reading it. On the front of the simple piece of paper, I had written the following:
We may not have a lot of money
To buy a card that's cute and funny.
But what we have can take the place
Of a paper heart with fancy lace.
We have each other, and that's the best,
Now open the card and read the rest.
On the inside, I had colored a large red heart and written "I Love You." I stood waiting and watching, afraid that he would start laughing at any moment. When he had finished reading it, he slowly raised his head and looked at me. Then the corners of his mouth started moving up! But all he did was smile tenderly.
While looking into my eyes, he reached down into his pocket. When he pulled his hand out, he was holding something. He told me that he had made it for me during his lunch hour, but he had been afraid to give it to me. He said that he thought I might think it was silly, and that I might laugh at it.
I took his hand in mine and turned it over. As I looked down, he slowly opened his fingers, and I saw a small heart made out of aluminum. While I had stayed up all night making him a valentine card, he had been cutting out a heart for me from a piece of aluminum. He said the guys he worked with had laughed at him for making the heart, and he'd been worried about giving it to me.
I still have the aluminum heart, and I keep it in my desk. Every once in a while when I open the drawer and see it lying there, all those memories come flooding back to me. Over the years, we've been able to buy each other very nice, expensive presents for Valentine's Day. But none has ever been as dear or meant as much as those handmade gifts made from our hearts the first year that we were married.
By Evelyn Wander
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Marilyn L. Ali
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