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Christmas was barely past when Jennifer began planning for our first Valentine’s Day.  She started small, just asking me things like, “will I get a ‘giff’ for Valentine’s Day?”  As I continued to assure her that there would be a gift, she eventually determined that it might be a good idea if she were to help me pick it out.  After some time she finally managed to get from me a maximum budget for the gift and how I planned to get it for her… Zales card, of course!  With that information in hand, she set about doing my work for me; shopping the Zales Online site for her first Valentine’s Day ‘Giff’.

After a great deal of comparison-shopping, she finally had selected the pendent that was going to make her Valentine’s Day complete.  She showed it to me numerous times over the next days and weeks, always asking me if I was really, really sure she was going to get that gift.  The more I assured her it would be hers, the more I began to realize there was going to be absolutely no surprise for my Angel on February 14^th.  And that’s when I made my decision…

On Friday, February 7^th, I left the office at lunch and went to the Zales Store near my office.  Then Friday night when I got home, I asked Jennifer to show me ‘one more time’ the actual pendent she wanted me to get her for Valentine’s Day.  While she pulled it up on the screen of my PC, I slipped into the living room and removed the little plush toy bear that I got with the purchase.  It already had the gift box inside a little pouch.  I then walked back into the bedroom where she was preparing to show me, once again, her heart’s desire for the holiday.

I bent over to look at the screen with her, then straightened up and produced the little bear and said, “Do you mean just like this?”  I will live the rest of my days remembering the minutes of our life that followed.  She laughed, she cried, she hugged me, she cried, she bounced like a small child, and she laughed, and she cried and she hugged me some more.  While all this was going on, I had to actually open the little pouch and show her that the real gift was inside.  So far she had only seen the little bear!  There were more hugs, and then she told me that she had never before in all her life received a gift for Valentine’s; this was her first.  In all my years of living, I have never experienced the kind of joy in giving that I experienced for those incredible few minutes on our own private little Valentine’s Day, February 7^th, 2003.

Jeminy Cricket, I sure do love my wife… Thanks for sharing your life with me, Pie!