Anytime Valentine’s Day is mentioned I reflexively bring up my parents. At this point, it is a completely involuntary, knee-jerk reaction.
“Oh well, that’s nothing,” I say at parties, “my parents got married on Valentine’s Day...”. I sip my drink. “After only knowing each other for a month!”
From there, I spend the next twenty-five minutes recounting my favorite love story of all time. The story of an American man traveling through the former Soviet Union searching for his calling and the young woman that drew him to Lithuania. Like some mystical Siren, my mother unknowingly beckoned my father across the ocean where they had a whirlwind romance that ended with a Valentine’s Day wedding.
I’ve gone through phases with my love for this love story. I was a rigidly prude child that couldn’t handle any noticeable displays of affection. I clamped my hands tightly over my eyes for much longer than necessary at any kissing scenes on the TV and squirmed with embarrassment as my dad serenaded my mom with his self-written love songs and poetry. Their love story was featured in a Lithuanian magazine, and my dad was dubbed the first-ever American-Lithuanian. The entire country fell in love with them and their story seemed inescapable. I rolled my eyes when adults asked me how I felt about my parent’s being so in love; I didn’t get it.
In my early teens, their love story hit the press for a second time. About five years after we moved to the United States, my parents started an opera company. This was the ultimate testament of my father’s love for my mother—he loved her so much, that he founded a place for her to sing her dream roles. As opening night for the first performance of Connecticut Lyric Opera neared the local paper did a profile on my parents. There, on the cover of the art’s section was their love story. I didn’t bother reading the article before I left for school that morning, what seventh grader would?
Apparently, the parents of my fellow seventh graders did read the article that morning. When I got to school a friend of mine mentioned the article and started his own line of questioning.
“It said that they met in 1992,” he said as we walked towards our first class of the day.
“Yup.”
“But that means he’s not your real dad.”
I gaped at him, unable to reply. Of course, I knew that he wasn’t my biological father, but that was a distinction without a difference. He was, and had always been, my dad.
“Um, yeah,” was the best response I could come up with.
While seventh graders may not be renowned for their tact, my friend let the subject drop and we didn’t mention it again until high school. After that, I was a little warier about my parents’ love story. It had gone from being something I didn’t understand, to something that felt much too personal. Their love story wasn’t just about them; somehow, I was involved too.
I took their love story for granted. I felt victimized by the unattainably high bar that they had set. They had a love-at-first-sight-love-song-flowers-and-chocolate sort of love that was all at once worthy of the cheesiest Hallmark movie and Oscar winning romance. I was jaded by the roses that appeared on our dining room table and blind to the steadfast, supportive, love that they embodied every day. They were parents being parents.
Over the years I have witnessed mind-blowing acts of service, love, and commitment from my parents. They took for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health to the extreme. They’ve traveled thousands of miles, sat at countless hospital beds, and have held each other through devastating loss.
I am fully in love with their love story. I am thankful for the seemingly unattainable standard that they set for love. Without them, I wouldn’t have pushed the limits of my own capacity to love and be loved.