The Last Valentine’s Day With My Mom: Choosing Love Before It Was Too Late

Valentine’s Day 2025 was one of the last times I can remember consciously creating and experiencing a deeply loving moment with my mother.

About a week earlier, around February 6 or 7, she had nearly died from sepsis. Somehow, she survived, but when Valentine’s Day arrived, she was still in the hospital and incredibly sick. I was already carrying an enormous amount of grief because I knew how fragile she had become, even if I didn’t fully understand how little time we had left together.

There is a kind of grief that begins long before someone dies. When you are caring for someone who is seriously ill, you can find yourself grieving them while they are still sitting right in front of you. You watch their body change, their independence disappear, and pieces of the person you have always known slowly become harder to reach. At the same time, you are trying to remain present for them while privately processing what is happening to you. That was where I was emotionally when Valentine’s Day arrived, and I realized I had a choice. I could experience the day through fear, anger and sadness. I could focus on everything that was happening to my mother and everything that was being taken away from us. I could become consumed by the unfairness of the situation and allow myself to feel like a victim of what was happening, or, I could create something different.

My mother and I had shared Valentine’s Day for years. It was one of our traditions. No matter where I was, she would send me a Valentine’s Day card in the mail. It was one of those seemingly small things that becomes incredibly significant once you realize there may come a day when it no longer happens.

In 2025, my mother was no longer in a position to create that experience for me. So I decided I would create it for both of us.

I stopped at the store before going to the hospital and bought five or six Valentine’s Day balloons. I bought a bag of candy, mostly for myself because I knew she wasn’t really going to eat it. Then I picked out two Valentine’s Day cards.

One was from me to her.

The other was from her to me.

When I walked into her hospital room with those balloons and cards, I could immediately feel something change. I knew my mother extremely well, and after spending so much time caring for her, I had become very sensitive to her energy. I could tell when she was uncomfortable, scared, withdrawing, or joyful.

When I walked in with all those balloons, cards, and candy, I could see her heart shining.

There was this unconditional, loving joy coming from her as she lay there in that hospital bed. She knew I had shown up for her, and remembered our tradition. For a little while, that room wasn’t about hospitals, doctors or what might happen next.

It was about a mother and her son sharing Valentine’s Day together.

Looking back now, I am incredibly grateful that I made that choice. My mother died a little over two months later. At the time, I didn’t know exactly how many days we had left. That is one of the lessons I carry with me now: we almost never know when we are experiencing something for the last time.

We rarely recognize those moments while we are living them. They simply feel like another moment in our lives until enough time passes and we realize there will never be another one exactly like it.

I couldn’t change what was happening to my mother. I couldn’t cure her. I couldn’t make her body stronger. I couldn’t take away everything she had been through, and I couldn’t control what was coming.

But I could control what I brought into that hospital room.

There are moments in life when circumstances give us every reason to operate from fear, anger or sadness. Those emotions are real, and choosing love does not mean pretending they aren’t there. I was grieving. I was scared. I was exhausted. I was watching someone I loved become increasingly sick, and she was about to die.

None of that disappeared because I bought a handful of balloons.

But in the face of my pain, I could experience something magical in circumstances that were anything but magical.

Sometimes I think we misunderstand what it means to show up for someone. We think love has to be some enormous gesture. In reality, some of the most meaningful moments of our lives are remarkably simple.

That moment wasn’t about me or my feelings. It was about serving my mother and our relationship.

When someone we love becomes sick, there can also come a point when they are no longer capable of giving us what they once gave us. They may not be able to make the phone call anymore. They may not remember the tradition. They may not be able to cook the meal, buy the present, mail the card or say the words the way they once did.

My mother could no longer create Valentine’s Day for me, so I created it for both of us. In serving her, I received something far greater in return.

I received a memory.

That is something I want people to understand, especially anyone who is currently caring for someone they love. You may not be able to change the circumstances you are facing. You may desperately wish things were different. You may be angry, frightened, exhausted or grieving a person who is still physically here.

But there may still be something available for you to create.

Ask yourself what your end result is.

Mine was very simple.

I wanted to create a magical memory with my mother.

I wanted one more experience that wasn’t defined by illness. I wanted something joyful and loving that could exist beyond that hospital room. Somewhere inside me, I understood that there would eventually come a day when all I had left were the memories we had created together.

So I consciously created one, and that is exactly what I received.

When I think about Valentine’s Day 2025 now, I could choose to remember it as the Valentine’s Day my mother spent sick in a hospital after nearly dying from sepsis.

That would be true.

But it isn’t the memory I created.

I remember walking into that room with those balloons. I remember our cards. I remember looking at her in that bed and feeling the change in her energy. I remember the joy and I remember her heart shining.

Most of all, I remember love.

If someone you love is sick right now, don’t wait for the perfect circumstances to create the memory. Tell them what they mean to you. And when you do it, do it for both of you!