A Different Kind of Valentine

Every February, the world turns red and pink.

Store aisles fill with heart-shaped boxes. Restaurants advertise candlelit dinners. Jewelry commercials promise that love can be wrapped in velvet and placed in a small white box.

For many, Valentine’s Day is joyful.

For others, it is quiet.

For military surviving spouses, it can be both tender and heavy at the same time.

Because love does not end when a life does.

And holidays have a way of reminding you of that.

The Love That Served

Military marriages are built on a particular kind of love.

The kind that survives deployments.
The kind that packs up houses on short notice.
The kind that navigates missed anniversaries and late-night phone calls.
The kind that holds everything together when service calls someone away.

It is not flashy love.

It is steady love.

It is choosing each other again and again, across distance, uncertainty, and risk.

And when that love is interrupted by death, the calendar does not adjust.

Valentine’s Day still arrives.

The Things I Would Rather Have

If I am honest, I would much rather have my husband here to celebrate with than spend my resources advocating for policy reform.

I would trade the hearings, the research, the travel, the drafting, the explanations, and the spreadsheets for one ordinary dinner together.

One unremarkable evening.

One shared joke while walking through the PX.

Advocacy was not the plan.

Love was.

But when love is cut short, sometimes advocacy becomes the way you continue caring.

Not because you want to spend your time and money that way.

But because you know too many others will walk this road after you.

“Love Is the Answer”

Jay’s dad used to play the song Love Is the Answer

It is simple. Hopeful. Almost disarmingly sincere.

The message is not complicated.

Love is the answer.

Not sentimentality.
Not slogans.
Not symbolic gestures.

Love.

On Valentine’s Day, that lyric feels different.

Because for those of us who have buried the person we loved most, love is not abstract. It is not seasonal. It is not decorative.

It is the reason we keep showing up.

It is the reason we advocate for better systems.
It is the reason we push for fairness in survivor policy.
It is the reason we ask institutions to do better.

Not out of anger.

Out of care.

Love Is Practical

On days like Valentine’s Day, people speak beautifully about honoring military families.

And the words matter.

They truly do.

But the kind of love that sustains surviving spouses is practical.

It is systems that function.
It is benefits that reflect modern realities.
It is hiring pathways that recognize career sacrifices made for the love of a service member.
It is policies that do not require constant proof of pain.

Love, in policy terms, looks like stability.

It looks like removing friction instead of adding forms.

It looks like recognizing that grief and financial vulnerability often arrive at the same time.

The Quiet Strength of Continuing

There is something deeply human about continuing to love someone who is no longer physically present.

Continuing to build a life.
Continuing to parent.
Continuing to care for aging parents.
Continuing to show up in rooms where policy decisions are made.

Not because it is easy.

But because the love that built that life still matters.

Valentine’s Day can be a reminder of what was lost.

It can also be a reminder of what was built.

Military surviving spouses are not looking for spectacle.

We are looking for stability.

For consistency.

For systems that understand the love we built did not vanish when the uniform came off for the last time.

Love is the answer.

So let it take the form of something lasting.

Let it be dependable.

Let it remain long after the flowers have faded.