A Stack of Valentine's

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you’re having a good one, and if you’re not, I hope the remaining days of February are much better.
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Every Valentine’s day I remember when my son Ruben was just a little over a month old. We were coming home from a doctor’s appointment and Ruben was fussy in the car so I decided to stop at a cafe. Inside, there was a man there who had a baby too, but his baby was as chubby as could be, could already smile, laugh even, and was shuffle-walk-crawling his way around a little table while holding a pretend phone with one hand and the table’s edge with the other. I told the man he had a cute baby and he told me that it was the baby’s 1st birthday. I marveled at what 11 more months could look like. What’s his name? I asked. “Valentine,” he said. Oh! I said. Then I said: “Happy Birthday and Valentine’s Day, Valentine.” Then the man asked what my baby’s name was and I said, “Ruben.” And then the man said his own name was Ruben. And so, we were two Rubens, two Valentines (one person, one day) and a Barrie.

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