Love Actually: Irish Examiner columnists reveal their most love-filled stories
Irish Examiner columnists (Ask Audrey unavailable for photocalls): talking about love ahead of Valentine's Day
One of the most heartfelt things I’ve received was mid-pandemic, when my son was halfway through completing his Leaving Cert online in the office next to mine.
He came in, between classes, and popped a Post-it on the wall saying ‘love you’ with a love heart.
It was such a beautiful, simple gesture and as it was just us living together at the time, it was a sign of solidarity and simplicity that I’ll never forget.
Post-its run through our family —you see, my dad wrote one to my mom every Friday for 40 years after their wedding day.
Jill, my fiancée, also created a wallpaper out of posters with beautiful quotes, meaning and memories on a random Sunday to cheer me up.
Simple pieces really do translate and mean more than any affluent grand gesture, and these will always be etched into my Post-it-loving heart.
The most heartfelt card I ever got was a double-edged sword when I was 13 in secondary school.
It was shoved into my locker and signed “from your secret admirer”.
I felt amazing and overjoyed until two of my friends eventually told me (and half the class) that they’d put it there.
I laughed it off but was heartbroken. 25 years later, I told my daughter about this.
She was only six. She made me a Valentine’s Day card in creche and wrote: “This is from a real person, and I love you.”
By February 14, 2021, my wife and I had been in Ireland for eight weeks.
The trip to see her parents had only been intended to last a fortnight but unfortunately, we got waylaid.
She began to feel so unwell the morning after we arrived in mid-December and by 1pm, we were racing her to the hospital with what turned out to be a ruptured fallopian tube brought on by ectopic pregnancy.
Her recovery after surgery was gradual and further complicated on New Year’s Eve, when all of us — she and I, our son and both her parents — came down with covid, leading to two weeks of miserable illness and isolation.
We were still licking our wounds by mid-February, with little in the way of romance occupying our minds.
Valentine’s Day arrived very nearly unmarked, without flowers or treats or wine taken under the twinkling lights of restaurant verandas.
No. Romance arrived for us in a small plastic sachet containing a KitKat, handed to me by the chemist as I picked up my wife’s meds.
“To be enjoyed once daily with a cup of tea,” it read.
I don’t know that we’d ever felt more loved.
I remember one year, I saw a red heart-shaped chocolate box in a window of a shop and went in to buy it.
“Well done, Dáithí,’ says you. ‘Chocolates. How original. Typical Kerry man.”
But the box was only the prop. I took out all the chocolates and turned the red velvet box into a Valentine’s card, all hand-painted on the inside with a few more treats. She loved it.
I did eat all the chocolates — they weren’t dairy or gluten-free. See? Always looking out for her — like a pure honorary Cork person.
Yes, I hear you say: “Now that’s what you call love, Boi!”
Cards, notes and letters mean a lot to me, and I hold onto the ones that are special.
I have birthday cards, Valentine’s cards, notes marking occasions and anniversaries, but the most special ones are probably those from two female friends in particular, who occasionally send notes of friendship completely out of the blue, but usually at exactly the time when I’m in need of support, reassurance or solidarity.
There’s something about a handwritten note that has the ability to lift your entire day, mood and perspective.
The simple act of writing to let someone know you are thinking of them might seem a small or old-fashioned thing, but it also means a lot.
When it comes to giving, I once wrote a poem for a woman I really liked and wanted to be friends with. I was very lonely at the time.
I had just transplanted my entire life from Dublin to Galway. I had small children and was on maternity leave so meeting new people was difficult.
I was really missing my family and friends when I met this woman who made me laugh so much, I knew we had to be friends.
I don’t really know why I thought penning a poem would be the thing to woo a new friend.
I mean what’s wrong with a bottle of champagne and a note?
It could have backfired but thankfully she saw the humour and I’m glad to report she’s now one of my best friends.
I’ll never forget my Conor got the flu on Valentine’s Day, so I was able to go to the restaurant by myself. (They were going to charge us 200 quid if we didn’t turn up).
I normally hate eating solo, but it’s the business on Valentine’s Day because you get the eye off all these guys who are fed up with their relationships.
I ended up with the choice of three men. I picked the guy with the best skiing tan because it’s obviously a sign he’s fit and has a bit of money.
I gave him the nod and he dropped his business card into my lap on the way to the jacks. A doctor, no less. What a result. Although his clinic is on the Northside.
Best present I gave to someone? Hmmm … I was very generous to said doctor in the car park of Douglas Court Shopping Centre, later that night.
I won’t go into the details, family newspaper and all that, but I can’t see myself enjoying Valentine’s that much again.
I wrote my first book over lockdown when we were living in Spain.
It was a labour of love and while I’d been a journalist for almost two decades, switching to fiction was scary (It was also crime, so double scary!) I wrote 90,000 words, squirrelling away chapters every evening after the kids’ remote learning.
It was a passion project, but the keyboard was also a touchstone during a very uncertain time.
The day I finally wrote, “The End”, my husband suggested we go for a drive. He pulled up outside the only print shop around, turned to me and said: “Let’s print your book”.
I didn’t have an agent or a publisher and while he’d said it was the best thing he’d ever read, we didn’t know if it would actually go anywhere. We got it printed and bound.
I stood in the little square outside that tiny Spanish print shop, feeling the weight of my imagination in my hands, and he pulled out a pen and asked me to sign my very first copy for him.
I shed a tear then and there, for his unwavering belief that I’d go on to become an author (of three books and counting!).
He’d believed in me long before I believed in myself, and that gesture meant the world.
There's always something lovely and personal about receiving a letter, or a note on a card from someone you really like and respect.
Among the cards I received on retiring from full-time journalism, more than eight years ago, was one from a special friend I knew since the 1970s. Her name was Eileen Cronin, who lived near Beaufort on the route to Ireland's highest mountain, Carrauntuohill.
It was the last house you passed before commencing the climb. IN the days before mobile phones and social media, Kerry Mountain Rescue Team, Gardaí and journalists would have a base camp, in Cronin's Yard, during emergencies and searches for hill-walkers in difficulty.
Eileen was a most hospitable, welcoming person who could claim to have made tea for more people than anyone else in Ireland. We often sat by kitchen fireside on cold winter nights awaiting developments through walkie-talkie communications on the mountains.
In a note on the retirement card, she sent me, she wrote: "I've great memories of all the days and nights of rescues you spent here. It would be lovely if you could call sometime." That touched me for I, too, had wonderful, warm memories of Eileen.
Sadly, she has since died. May God be good to you, Eileen.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
