From Vietnam with love: Don’t forget the 14th of February!   Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Tuoi Tre I know you are still recovering from Tet but Valentine’s Day has come! During one of the coldest winters Vietnam has ever suffered, it will be one of the warmest days of the year. Reserved not just for the young lovers, Valentines are given to many that we care for. In my family we usually give flowers and a small gift to my mother. In other families, married couples celebrate Valentine’s Day not as a habit but as a loving gesture far from the commercial image we know too well. My first Valentine was in late elementary school. She had Spanish eyes, raven-black hair and polished brown skin and made me die every time she looked sideways at me. We kissed under a tree near the school sports field and then another boy punched me in the face because he was jealous of me. I didn’t even know what ‘jealousy’ was – the headmaster explained it to me! By early high school, Valentines were secret messages searching for a reply that would make life worth living during the hell of mathematics and the horror of physical education classes. If you never, ever, attempted to sneak, smuggle or stash a passionate love note to that cute girl (or boy) across the classroom, I’m sure you were secretly a zombie or worse, the teacher’s spy. Learning about love by trial and error was messy in high school. A daring kiss under the stairway, a slap in the face for being too bold and getting caught in an embrace by the history teacher (I didn’t know it was his daughter, really) were just some of the adventures and disasters of courtship Australian style during the 1970s. Falling in love with Diana was a magical accident at a rock concert that changed my life. She was sixteen to my fifteen but looked nineteen in a golden Californian way. The first time I sent flowers and the first time I sat on the roof thinking of her were my first true heartbreak. There were many romances as I moved around Australia and later overseas. I adored my wife although our marriage was so short and tragically shattered. I was running a lottery when I met her. I was poor, still doing my first degree so one time I took her to dinner in a car park with meals served from the boot of my old car. Later I proposed to her in a sea of seventeen thousand dollars (the lottery money we were counting) on my kitchen floor with a sapphire ring. While she’s gone, I still have those small delicious memories. And that is what it’s all about, hey? We remember who we love and why and Valentine’s Day is one of those rituals; flowers in the colors of love, words from the dreams of our thoughts and sweet food to share. After forty-two years of diving in love’s pool, I’ve learned that love never stops. That there really is someone for everyone, no matter how poor, ugly, unschooled or unfortunate they are. In one of my first jobs, there was a tall, clumsy guy with a face like a claw dating a tiny slip of a girl who looked pale and sick. The gossipy girls in the office were horrible to them. Later when I was running the lottery I met them, married with the most beautiful little girl. You could feel the love between them almost like a warm breeze. We as humans are richer for the love that we keep inside despite all that life throws at us. On Valentine’s Day we show our hearts to our closest, our parents and sometimes to those who missed out on a show of affection on the 14th of February that becomes wider spread each year. I hope someday it becomes global. To all those who will celebrate Valentine’s Day and to those whose luck is yet to arrive, don’t forget the 14th! By the way, if you can’t think of anything to say... here’s the original poem for inspiration! The rose is red, the violet's blue, The honey's sweet, and so are you. Thou art my love and I am thine; I drew thee to my Valentine: The lot was cast and then I drew, And Fortune said it shou'd be you. (English nursery rhymes Gammer Gurton's Garland, 1784) Tuoitrenews. STIVI COOKE