Happy Valentine’s Day
I stared out the window of the second-grade classroom at the tall, shady mango tree while colorful, tropical birds tweeted happily among the branches. The drone of the teacher’s voice faded quietly into the background at the boarding school for missionary children in Nigeria.
My racing heartbeat slowed for a moment. Then the chalk screeched on the blackboard, and I quickly turned my head toward the front of the classroom. I don’t want to get yelled at again for daydreaming.
I shifted in the hard, wooden seat. To bend my knees, I scooted right up to the edge. Still, my feet didn’t touch the floor like the other kids but dangled in the air.
As I swung my legs back, my heels kicked the drawer underneath my seat. That made a nice hollow sound. I started bumping my heels rhythmically … thump, thump, thumpity, thump, and my rattled nerves settled down.
Suddenly the teacher, standing at the blackboard, snapped her head around, one hand holding a stub of white chalk in midair. “Who’s kicking their chair?”
A traitor in the next aisle pointed and all eyes turned to me. My legs froze stiff. Oh, how I wished I were back home at Egbe or out on the playground or even in my bedroom. Anywhere but here.
“Debbie, you’re as bad as the boys.” Her voice sounded raspy and frustrated. “Stop kicking your chair, right now!”
My heart rate revved up a notch, and I answered in a shaky voice. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
I never do anything right. How can all the girls sit still except me?
Valentine’s Day: A Not-So-Happy Holiday
The teacher turned back to the board and continued with the arithmetic lesson. Finally, she finished, set the chalk on the metal ledge, turned to the class, and said, “Close your books and put them in your drawer now. It’s time for a craft.”
“Yippee! Yay!” Every kid in the class was happy for a break from regular schoolwork.
The teacher pulled a big box out of the cupboard containing red and pink paper, white lace doilies, several scissors, and plastic tubs of paste. “We have a special holiday next week called Valentine’s Day.”
She walked up to the first row of desks and handed out supplies. “Today you’ll make a Valentine for each of your friends in the classroom. First, you need to make a large envelope and decorate it to hold all of the cards you’ll receive.”
My hand shot up in the air and she stopped by my desk. “What do you need, Debbie?”
“Well.” I looked up, then hung my head. “Do I have to make the cards? I don’t have any friends.”
The teacher placed four sheets of construction paper, two reds and two pinks, on my desktop. “Yes, you must make one for each of the children in the class.”
I watched my fingers as they traced a crack across the top of my desk. I mumbled, “But you said to make them for my friends, and I don’t have any.”
My fingers continued tracing as I lifted my head and looked around the room. No one here likes me, I thought, so I won’t get many cards.
Does Anyone Like Me?
The teacher pressed her lips together. Then she let out her breath in a huff and said, “Of course, everyone in here is your friend. Now please sit up straight and stop making excuses.”
I made one last plea. “But I don’t want to give any cards to anyone.”
She stacked two white doilies on top of the colored construction paper. “Please cut out the hearts now and try to have fun with this project.”
The teacher turned toward the kid at the desk behind me and continued handing out supplies to my excited classmates.
I slumped over my desk and put my warm forehead on the cool wood. She doesn’t understand that I really don’t like anybody. Is there something wrong with me?
After a minute, I picked up the scissors and started cutting along the black lines drawn on the paper. At least this is better than arithmetic.
The girl across from me held up a perfectly shaped pink heart. “I’ll make my first valentine for you, Debbie.”
I smiled. “Thank you!” Maybe she’ll be my friend.
Front row, Brian, Steve, Barbara, me, Sheena, Gloria.
Looking Back at That Time
In first grade at Kent Academy, I had Sheena as a close friend, but the next year, the dorm staff kept us apart. In those days, they believed if a friendship excluded others, it wasn’t healthy, and we needed to cultivate relationships with all our classmates. I lost the only support I had.
All of that was so hard for me, since I didn’t want to be separated from my family in the first place, and I desperately wished I could fly home to Egbe. I missed my younger siblings, Mark, Grant, and Cindy so terribly. Seldom did I even glimpse my older brother, Larry, since he was in a different dorm and a different grade.
Our teacher was generally a very sweet lady when all the kids stayed in line. However, even though I was shy, I was not always compliant. No one understood that I was thoroughly confused with the lessons, didn’t feel connected to my classmates, and wasn’t mature enough to know how life at school was supposed to work.
What I Know Now
Today I have at least three dozen close friends from my church, neighborhood, homeschooling community, and writers’ groups. Studies show that most women can only maintain three or four close friendships. So, I think I’m trying to make up for the loneliness and losses I experienced throughout my childhood. Ever since I left boarding school, I’ve worked hard to fill a void—perhaps to imitate the sister-like closeness I eventually developed with the girls in my class, after living in such close proximity in the dorms for ten years.
On the other hand, many TCKs and MKs (third culture kids and missionary kids) living in the US tell me they feel disconnected from the average American who has never lived outside this country. They have great difficulty making friends in adulthood. Many adult TCKs and MKs have been uprooted too many times and now fear growing close to anyone because a new friend is just someone else to lose.
In recent years, I’ve had the extraordinary blessing of reconnecting via social media with many of the girls from my boarding years. These are friends who I didn’t necessarily choose in childhood, but we were thrown together in the crucible of fire, and now we’ve forged deep and lasting friendships. As we’ve shared stories about our lives now and reminisced about way back when, we’re finding great healing from past and present pain. Some of them are now my closest confidants. Having a friend who’s known me all my life is unusual these days, and I’m so grateful for these precious women.
Link It to Your Life
What was your experience of Valentine’s Day like? Did you have a close friend in childhood? How were you able to make friends and keep up those relationships through the years?
Father, thank you for the sisters, brothers, and friends you’ve given me. I’m so grateful for the many special people who have helped me in times of adversity and given me strength when I needed it.
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. (Proverbs 17:17 NIV)
Note: I’ve written this story to the best of my ability. The dialogue is reconstructed based on my memory, so every word isn’t exactly as was spoken since I don’t have a tape-recorder transcript. But it reflects the spirit and feeling of the moment. This was previously published on my blog in February 2023 and 2020.
To read about another February holiday, Leap Year, click here.
3 thoughts on “Happy Valentine’s Day”
Your recollections of Valentines Day and life in general in elementary school resonate with me. My parents sent me to a Christian School that I attended from kindergarten through second grade. The other children at the school were predominately middle-class to wealthy, they were very Dutch, and they all went to either the Reformed or Christian Reformed churches. My family was poor, we were not-Dutch-enough, and we attended the Brethren Church. As a result, I had no friends at that school. I sat at a lunch table alone. During recess, I sat alone waiting for the bell to ring. When my mother brought cupcakes for the class on my birthday, one of the boys said, “I’m not eating those – they’re from her family.” Fortunately, by the time I was in third grade, my parents could no longer afford the tuition, and I transferred to public school where I easily made friends. Though the experience was painful and lonely, I am grateful for the lessons it taught me related to relationships, forgiveness, compassion, and caring for others.
Your experience of wanting and having lots of close friends also resonates with me. After my transfer to public school, I eagerly learned how to make friends and maintain friendships. As a result, I now have many close friends, and I am aware of what a gift they are to me. I think I also want to be a good friend, because I know how good it feels. On that note, Debbie, you have developed the art of friendship, and you are a much-appreciated friend.
Thank you for sharing this story. God is faithful, and we are His grateful daughters.
My heart goes out to that little girl you were, while feeling a sense of gratitude for the many friendships you now have. When I was in school I believe we only gave Valentine cards to friends, but in my adult son’s childhood, the students did bring cards for all the members of the classroom.
This holiday can be a difficult one even for adults. A now deceased friend of mine, a dedicated believer who never dated and didn’t marry, felt that Valentine’s Day was not from God. I found this an interesting perspective, in spite of its nominally Christian origins.
Thank you for sharing your memories with us, Debbie, which are enlightening to those of us who were not the children of missionaries, but can still identify with some of your childhood experiences and emotions, whether painful or joyful.
Your description of Valentine envelopes and the supplies for making valentines sounds exactly like the ones from my childhood. I’ve always been fortunate to have one or two close friends who crossed over from church to school. That was lifesaving since most kids at school didn’t understand my Mennonite heritage and dress. Several of them still go to my church so we have a sense of kinship and affection but I don’t socialize with them much outside of church. We’ve chosen different interests (and politics!). I’ve moved around a bit and found new friends in each place but I don’t think too much about needing a “best friend”. I love the company of my husband and our family but also enjoy being alone. I do occasionally take in a play or go to lunch with a good friend.