Heart … broken

It’s a day wrapped in chocolate and candy hearts. But not for me. Valentine’s Day will always be the day my mother died.

Growing up, I remember her railing against the manufactured romance and cooing niceties in which the 14th day of February had been drowned. It was a Sweet’N Low holiday for her, saccharinely sweet and completely artificial. At the end of her life, in what I can only imagine was a final act of defiance, she stuck it…