I remember Valentine's Days in elementary school...

We'd spend the week preceding Valentine's Day making little mailboxes to put on our desk. Then on the big day, everyone would walk around and drop Valentine's into all the mailboxes. It was expected that you'd just give a card to everybody, but I always had a hard time dropping a Valentine into Walter P.'s mail box. I really didn't like him. Near the end of the day, there'd be a little party where we could open our mail boxes and read all our Valentines.

Every year, from Grade 1 until Grade 5, my mother would make heart-shaped sugar cookies. She'd spread the hearts with pink frosting, then with white frosting she'd write the name of everyone in my class (AND my sister's class) on their own special cookie. Each heart would get a white piped edging of icing, and maybe a sprinkle of pink sugar. They were beautiful, true works of art.

On Valentine's Day, my sister and I would carefully carry our own Tupperware container onto the school bus, guarding it with our lives. "What do you have?" "Is there one with my name on it?" "Those look so good, can I have one?" As soon as we got to school, we'd give the container to our teacher, and she could guard it until the right time. I remember feeling very proud as the teacher would announce each year, "Paula's mother has prepared us a special treat!" and then she'd call up each person by name to get their very own cookie. It used to bother me, though, that Walter P. got a pretty cookie...I didn't think he deserved one at all.

Is that what they mean when they say "It rains on the just and the unjust"? Even the unworthy get pretty cookies? I guess that's good. I've been unworthy of most of the blessings in my life, too, if you come right down to it.