Valentine’s Day
I wake to the hush of winter,
the hush you would have loved,
soft as the snowfall over old stone bridges,
soft as the echo of your voice
telling stories of England,
where you never walked,
but always belonged.
You told me stories of castles,
of Diana and the Queen,
of palaces where chandeliers hummed
with the breath of ghosts.
You would have worn pearls there,
tilted your head just so,
as if you, too, were made of history,
as if your laughter belonged to their halls.
I never knew Valentine’s Day
the way others did –
no candlelit dinners, no shy confessions,
no hand to hold but yours, steady and warm,
pulling me close before the cake was cut,
before the candles wavered,
before the day slipped quietly
into another year without you.
I would not have missed it for the world.
Not for love, not for longing,
not for the kind of romance
that wilts in the shadow of loss.
And today, again,
I choose you, Mum.
I choose the memory of your hands
cupping my face like a prayer.
I choose the stories you told,
woven into the quiet spaces of my heart.
I choose the castles, the palaces,
the old stone bridges you never saw,
but would have loved.
I close my eyes,
and you are there –
a queen in a land of my dreams,
forever waiting at the window,
forever calling me home.
