Back when I was a young and single, Valentine’s Day seemed like a cruel event of the calendar.
If you were a guy in a relationship, you ran around trying to do something spectacular to impress your special girl, but usually to the disappointment of both parties.   Call me cynical or inept – or both -- but something always seemed to go wrong.   Could it have had something to do with me always waiting until the last minute to find the perfect gift? Probably.  If “Danger” is Austin Powers’ middle name, “Procrastination” would have to be mine.
Even today, all the commercials from Hallmark and the countless flower outlets don’t help to make it much easier for guys. In fact, they might even make matters worse. Every polished commercial only helps to raise my wife’s expectations of a grand, glorious and romantic day, expectations which I invariably don’t meet.
So, is Valentine’s Day as an evil plot contrived by commercial outlets?  Whatever you think of it, there is some interesting history tied to the day.
Some attribute it to a Catholic bishop named Valentine.  As the story goes, despite the Roman Empire declaring marriage for soldiers illegal, old “Val” continued to perform weddings for them until he was put to death for the crime.
Still others say it’s tied to the fact that a Greco-Roman festival devoted to fertility was outlawed by the Pope.  In an effort to “Christianize” the festival that ran February 13-15th, they declared the 14th to be “Valentine’s Day.”
Whatever the case, according to Wikipedia, the day didn’t really get to be known as a day to celebrate romantic love until Geoffrey Chaucer’s  "Parlement of Foules” in 1382.
Shockingly, a posting suggested that prior to 1832, “earlier links” had been “focused on sacrifice rather than romantic love.”
And hear I thought the definition of love had been lost closer to our own time! Not quite.

Most parents will remember when their children grew too large or too heavy – or both -- for their stroller. For many if not most, it’s a bittersweet moment. After all, junior is growing up! The waddle soon turns to walking and then -- running. Life will never again be the same.

But what about this transition time for a special needs child? When my son grew out of his stroller and his cerebral palsy prevented him from following the “normal” process in learning how to walk, we found ourselves completely unprepared for the task of buying a wheelchair to replace his simple stroller.

We knew enough to call the insurance company. But, it was a disheartening experience. The representative informed us that what we qualified for was not even close to what our boy would really need. Negotiations ensued, our meager savings were tapped and somehow we made it all work – and learned a few lessons along the way.

Like a lot of people, we considered the purchase of the chair to be a necessary “evil” – like a tax bill or a new transmission for the family van. Looking back, I was probably a little bitter that we even needed to buy one in the first place. Though it was helping our son get around, we subconsciously resented its necessity. While other parents complained about their toddler wanting to run ahead at the mall, we only wished we had such problems. And so, the cost was just an added irritant. At the time, you never could have convinced me that a wheelchair was more a blessing than a burden.

I was watching a cable news channel the other day. The discussion was about autism and vaccinations. It surrounded the doctors who did the original study that reported to show a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Most of the doctors involved have denounced the study, and now someone says they altered the children in the study’s records and the lead doctor had an agenda. It seems certain the research was tainted.  They also talked about more recent studies that show the rate of autism has grown among children at the same rate with or without the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) and the preservative once thought to cause the disorder.

What was amusing to me was that despite all the information many parents of children with autism continue not to vaccinate their children, still believing that vaccines cause the disorder.  They even interviewed a mother who told the story of her son who, she said, was a “normal” child until he got his shots.

I don’t know who is right in this story: are the doctors and studies trying to cover up the truth about vaccinations, or is this mom merely misguided? Maybe her child already had autism, but she didn’t really notice the symptoms until he was old enough to get the MMR. I can’t answer that, but I found it interesting that the commentator seemed shocked that this mother disregarded the “evidence” and continued to believe her experience.