Love is a telephone 愛(ài)情是部電話機(jī)

The traditional holidays in our house when I was a child were spent timing elaborate [i?l?b?reit](詳盡的) meals around football games. My father tried to make pleasant chitchat [?t?itt??t](閑談) and eat as much as he could during half-time. At Christmas he found time to have a cup or two of holiday cheer [t???(r),t??r](喝彩) and do his holly-shaped bow tie(青枝狀的領(lǐng)結(jié)). But he didn't truly shine [?ain] until Valentine's Day(情人節(jié)).

I don't know whether it was because work at the office slowed during February or because the football season was over. But Valentine's Day was the time my father chose to show his love for the special people in his life. Over the years I fondly thought of him as my " Valentine Man."

My first recollection [?rek??lek??n](記憶) of the magic he could bring to Valentine's Day came when I was six. For several days I had been cutting out valentines for my classmates. Each of us was to decorate [?dek?reit](裝飾) a "mailbox" and put it on our desk for others to give us cards. That box and its contents ushered in a succession of bittersweet [?bit?swi:t](苦樂(lè)參半的)memories of my entrance into a world of popularity contests marked by the number of cards received, the teasing about boyfriends/girlfriends and the tender [?tend?](親切) care I gave to the card from the cutest(最可愛(ài)的) boy in class.

That morning at the breakfast table I found a card and a gift-wrapped(禮物包裝) package at my chair. The card was signed "Love, Dad" , and the gift was a ring with a small piece of red glass to represent my birthstone [?b?:θst?un](誕生石), a ruby. There is little difference between red glass and rubies(紅寶石) to a child of six, and I remember wearing that ring with a pride [praid](驕傲) that all the cards in the world could not surpass.

As I grew older, the gifts gave way to heart-shaped(心形) boxes filled with my favorite chocolates and always included a special card signed "Love, Dad" .In those years my "thank-yous" became more of a perfunctory [p??f??kt?ri:](敷衍的) response.The cards seemed less important, and I took for granted the valentine that would always be there. Long past the days of having a "mailbox" on my desk, I had placed my hopes and dreams in receiving cards and gifts from "significant others" , and "Love, Dad" just didn't seem quite enough.

If my father knew then that he had been replaced, he never let it show. If he sensed any disappointment [?d?s??p??ntm?nt](失望) over valentines that didn't arrive for me, he just tried that much harder to create a positive atmosphere [??tm?sfi?，??tm?sf??(r)](氣氛), giving me an extra hug and doing what he could to make my day a little brighter.

My mailbox eventually had a rural address, and the job of hand-delivering candy and cards was relegated to the U.S.Postal [?p??st?l](郵政) Service. Never in ten years was my father's package late--nor was it on the Valentine's Day eight years ago when I reached into the mailbox to find a card addressed to me in my mother's handwriting [?h?nd?raiti?](手寫(xiě)).

It was the kind of card that comes in an inexpensive assortment [??s?:tm?nt](分類) box sold by a child going door-to-door to try to earn money for a school project. It was the kind of card that you used to get from a grandmother or an aging aunt or, in this case, a dying father. It was the kind of card that put a lump [l?mp](腫)塊) in your throat and tears in your eyes because you knew the person no longer was able to go out and buy a real valentine. It was a card that signaled this would be the last you receive from him.

The card had a photograph of tulips(郁金香) on the outside, and on the inside my mother had printed "Happy Valentine's Day" . Beneath [bi?ni:θ](在下方) it, scrawled(潦草地寫(xiě)) in barely legible [?led??b?l](易讀的)handwriting, was "Love, Dad" .

His final card remains on my bulletin board(告示牌) today. It's a reminder [r??ma?nd?](提醒)of how special fathers can be and how important it had been to me over the years to know that I had a father who continued a tradition of love with a generosity [?d?en??r?s?ti:](大方)of spirit, simple acts of understanding and an ability to express happiness over the people in his life.

Those things never die, nor does the memory of a man who never stopped being my valentine.