Heart health: A gift that keeps on giving

I don’t usually get into Valentine’s Day but I decided I wanted to make this year special.

Logan and I will have been married exactly nine months on Valentine’s Day and I figure that deserves more than the box of chocolates and cheesy card that I usually get him.

I thought about getting Logan a Kindle Fire, but then realized that gift would be more for me. I took note of the records he’s been looking at on E-bay, but he seemed to have already purchased them. What to do? What to do?

I love to buy and create gifts for people. It’s one of my favorite things to do. But for some occasions a gift just doesn’t seem adequate. What I really want to give Logan for Valentine’s Day is time.

I want us to have time to spend together, not just for a Valentine’s Day date, but for a lifetime. And I know that requires us both to be healthy.

Along with Valentine’s Day and Black History month, February also marks American Heart month. Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death for men and women in this country. Those statistics hit home in our house. Logan’s father and grandfather both died of heart attacks before the age of 50, an age that seems younger and younger the older I get.

I can’t imagine living the second half of my life without Logan. We have big dreams of driving across the country in a Volkswagen bus when we retire. And we plan to be the hippest couple in our retirement village.

I can’t bear the thought of losing Logan to heart disease. We eat healthy and exercise moderately but I know that’s not always enough. And in case I ever forget the daytime shows likes The View are filled with advertisements for cholesterol lowering medications. I guess they want women like me to nag their husbands to go to the doctor.

I have to admit the commercials worked on me. (I’m quite the sucker when it comes to targeted marketing.) When I think about Valentine’s Day, the only thing I really want to get for Logan is an appointment to the doctor to get his numbers checked.

Valentine’s Day reminds me of how much I love my husband. And American Heart Month reminds me how much I don’t want our time together to end too soon.