By Mike McGough
She was born in 1920. She was a bright and healthy child. That was until she was stricken with polio in 1924. That year had been a particularly bad one for the poliovirus. She was among the fortunate. Even though she was left with severe paralysis in both legs, she survived.
Initially, most of her days were spent in a wheelchair, but on occasion and with the assistance of cumbersome metal leg braces, she could stand and take a step or two. As a child of a working-class family in an era when medical care was a for-cash service, there were serious limits on the care her family could offer. Her parents did all they could, but there were limitations. The fact that they lived across the street from the school she attended was a blessing. It was a kindergarten through grade 12 building. Due to the efforts of an empathetic and benevolent doctor, who happened to be on the school board when the school was built, it had an elevator.
During her school years, she did very well. She served as the editor of the school paper and was a class representative to the student council. With the help of her doctor and a caring coach from the local YWCA, she was on a community swim team. All things considered, her school years worked out really well, but she had obstacles other students didn’t have to face.
When it came time for the Valentine’s Day Dance in 1937, she had little or no hope of being asked. Her parents planned a trip for that weekend, so that she wouldn’t have to watch couples arriving at the school for the dance. Although not a great plan, they thought it was reasonable accommodation.
Two weeks before the dance, there was a knock at her door. There stood a classmate. His face was a red as a beet. This painfully shy young man stumbled again and again trying to ask her to the dance. When she accepted, he smiled, thanked her, and said, “See you tomorrow.” He didn’t know it then, but they’d share lots and lots of tomorrows.
They had only known each from the beginning of the school year. His family moved to town that summer. To help him deal with his shyness, his parents invited her to come to dinner one evening the week before the dance. The evening she went to his house, his mother greeted her at the door. She, too, was in a wheelchair—a polio survivor from the winter of 1931. They made an instant and permanent connection, because a painfully shy, yet amazingly empathetic young man had made a connection.
The dance was a memorable evening for both of them. After graduation, they attended a local business school; they both became accountants. Their relationship blossomed. Three months after they graduated, they were engaged, and six months later they married. They both went to work for the same small accounting firm. In time, they bought that firm. Their devotion to each other, their three children, and their business was remarkable. Like all families, they went through tough times, but that just brought them closer.
By the 1980s, the firm had two offices with more than thirty accountants, several of whom were family members. They decided to retire on February 14, 1991, the day they celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. That day they handed the reigns of the firm over to children and grandchildren who had become part of it.
On their way home after a great party to celebrate five decades together, he pulled the car in front of their school. Still an unassuming and shy person more than a half century later, he shared how nervous he was to ask her to that Valentine’s Day Dance, but how glad he was that he did. He then said, “I wish I was better at telling you how much I love you and always will. I suppose my shyness may have kept me from telling you as often as I should have. I’m going to do what I can to get better at that.”
Fighting back tears, she said, “I love hearing you say it, but you don’t have to change anything for me. You see, you show me every day that you love me, just as you’ve been doing every day since the night of that dance. I couldn’t ask for more!”
For some people, expressing love in words is difficult. If telling someone that you love them doesn’t come easy, no problem, focus instead on earnestly showing them!
Happy Valentine’s Day! MSN
