Personal 101: An Unexpected Beautiful Valentine Post

Happy belated Valentine’s Day.

Frankly speaking, I don’t send roses on Valentine for 2 main reasons and it has nothing to do with PAS Youth’s call to boycott Valentine’s Day. 2 reasons – 1. Expression of love should not be confined to one particular day of the year and 2. Price of roses on Valentine’s Day is insanely expensive (unless you have your own rose garden).

My wife does not really complain about it although I am sure she would love to get a large pack of roses on the 14th of February. Personally instead of roses, I rather take her for a good dinner and so it has been so for many years now. This year however was different – me and my wife got a surprise last night.

The “big boss” was waiting for me at the car porch as I came back home from work. Even before I took out my socks, he was already pestering me to go to the bedroom but I held him off for a second to put my things down. He usually does the same when he had done some artwork and want our “endorsement”. Either that or he usually wants to get my phone to play games.

We then walked up towards the room when he asked us to stop and close our eyes – he had “something” to show us. He led us inside and asked us to open our eyes – we saw in front of us – a rose with a short note for each of us (the misspelt Valentine was immaterial). Admittedly, it almost brought tears to my eyes especially I had read the notes but I withheld it and tried to act normal – I need to be confident in front of the “big boss” (I was not sure if it was the same for my wife).

My son then hugged the two of us and walked back down to watch cartoon – it was business as usual to him. We were impressed but at the same time, wondered where he got the roses (he had one red rose for each of us and then a pink one for himself). We knew that roses on Valentine’s Day was not cheap but here he had 3 of them.

We called him and asked him how he managed to buy the roses. Apparently he had some help from his aunts who had organized a stall selling roses for Valentine’s Day. He asked about Valentine’s Day, puts in his “request for roses” up early to ensure he gets it on time and he got them for a very cheap price on credit (I think so). We were indeed impressed with his networking skills, creativity and at the same innocence at this stage.

Seeing his Valentine’s notes and talking about expressions of love, it kind of reminded me of a photo shoot that I took of my young niece and her dad over the weekend.

We had just come back from a trip up north and as we had decided to go in one car, we went over to my brother in law’s house to drop him, his wife and his baby daughter, But before we go to his house, my brother-in-law suggested that we head over for a cup of coffee. After all, it has been a tiring journey and a strong cup of hot coffee would do wonders to a weary body.

We headed to Coffee Bean and ordered our drinks – my brother-in-law was staring at his baby daughter and playing with her. She was looking back at her Daddy and seemed to be wanting to say something. But then again, she need not say anything – her eyes said it all and I was lucky to catch that moment. I am sure both of them will cherish this moment for the rest of the lives and it was not even Valentine’s Day.

This surely will be one of Valentine’s Day to be remembered.