Happy Valentine’s Day

This is a true story. ️

Valentine’s Day is one of my most favorite holidays because it reminds me to celebrate the love we feel for each other.

Advertisements and commercials focus on selling “love-substitutes” as much as possible, wanting to make us believe that we are only loved if someone gives us the diamond necklace or spends a lot of money on us otherwise.
Luckily we have the ability to choose how we want to remember and celebrate the people we love. After all, Valentine’s Day is about nurturing the love in our own hearts so we can share it with others. We all can think of some special experience we had with our loved ones.

I would like to share one wonderful experience I had with my father with you. This story made me realize how strongly the energy of love connects us with one another.

My parents are very connected to nature and even in their older age now, enjoy going for walks daily. It’s part of their life. My mother has her favorite route and my father has his own preferences too. My mother likes to talk during her walks and resolve the worlds problems, while my father asks everybody to be quiet so we can observe some wildlife. I enjoy both of their ways and usually just surrender to the “leader of the day”.

One day I went with my mother for a wonderful walk through the beautiful old German village, where they live. My Mom pointed out all the changes that had occurred since my last visit. We had a great time discussing the little things of life like other people’s landscaping choices or how much longer it would be until the blueberries are ripe enough to be eaten. When we returned home, we had homemade cake and very strong German coffee, in old German tradition, just to celebrate the afternoon.

To recover from this really hard work, I decided to take an afternoon nap.
After about an hour, fully refreshed, I had just enough time to go for another walk with my father before supper. (To be honest with you I have to walk so much in Germany because the food is so good and I need to make sure that my wardrobe will still fit when I go home.)

After being unable to find my dad in his workshop, I decided to go for a hike by myself. I went towards the forest and ended up in an area that I was unfamiliar with. Since exploring nature is in my DNA I entered the woods and started to follow a small path. It began to get dark and a light fog came up as the night settled in. The path lead me to a small meadow and I could see the the last sunlight setting on the horizon. This meadow was beautiful and it’s energy represented peace and tranquility to me.

At the edge of this meadow was a wooden stand for hunters to wait for the deer. Hopeful to observe some wildlife, I climbed up the long ladder. It got dark and everything was very quiet.

Suddenly I could hear some noise coming from the trees. Excitedly I held my breath. Maybe I would see a wild pig. Wouldn’t that be awesome? The noise got louder and came closer and closer. Soon I knew that this couldn’t be a pig or a deer. This was a bigger animal. I started to think about my defense strategies, being hopelessly stranded on the top of this outlook. The noise came even closer and I started to hear someone climbing up the ladder. I gathered all my courage and said in a loud and hopefully dangerous voice: “Hey, who is that?”
Suddenly, a very familiar voice answered: “Gaby, what are you doing here?”
My dad was climbing up the ladder, to observe some deer, just like I was hoping to do. I was relieved and surprised at the same time.
As my sweet father climbed up the ladder to join me, I told him that I had never been here before. “Neither have I” he replied.
By now it had gotten so dark that I couldn’t really see his face but I felt how a wave of love connected us in this moment.
Here we were, sitting together in silence in the middle of the woods, in a place where neither of us had ever been before, and yet we had found each other.

How deeply connected through love must we really be for something like this to happen?
There was no need to talk or to explain anything. We were both deeply touched by this experience and we kept it as our secret, until today, that I’m sharing this story with you.

I hope that you too will find your happy Valentine’s today.
Make this holiday work for you. Create your own special tradition and remember the wonderful and loving moments you had with the many special people in your life.

I will keep you all in my heart and in my prayers and wish you a wonderful and loving day.
​
With all my Love,

your
Gabrielle & Eddie