A Red Letter Day

Valentine's Day. His least favorite day of the year, a revulsion inherited from his father he assumed. "Makes me see red," his dad announced repeatedly, almost triumphantly, every February fourteenth.

The old man would shout out, "Makes me see red," then laugh that gruff almost choking laugh he had when he thought he was particularly amusing or clever. 

    Sam never really knew what his dad meant or how he felt about anything. Now, thinking about his father, the gruff old man, gone now for exactly a year, he started to smile. "Makes me see red," Sam said under his breath.

    "Makes me see red," he said a second time. 

    "Makes me see RED." The third time's the charm, right?

    Or a joke. That angry old man was making a joke, doing his best to rise above himself, to add lightness to his heavy, smoke-stained voice. Uttering or muttering Happy Valentine's Day was beyond him, but maybe he had been...trying, really trying to rise above the constrictions of his life.

    "BE A MAN!" Another of his charges, his orders, his lessons. Him trying to be a man for his son and, maybe, even for his wife?

    Sam knew the old man had had no money for flowers or candy hearts, no way to say I love you without saying it out loud, but maybe, just maybe an acknowledgment, even an admission that he knew what day it was, that he was doing his best to say the day was special, something worth noting, a red-letter day, a day of love, unexpressed love, but love nevertheless.

                                                                               ~

    "I'll take the red ones," Sam said.

    The florist was confused. "The roses? Carnations? Mums?"

    "All of them," he said. "I like to see red.