It was in 1956 when my grandmother first landed on South African soil. As she explains it, there is no word based description that could describe the raging storm of that night. For any 22 year old young lady, this first experience of a new surrounding was daunting and frightening. Having come from a strong catholic and Italian origin, my grandmother was simply over whelmed, having taken her first steps out of the only country she knew and having taken them by herself. It was only a few days later that she married Stefano Candelori, my grandfather. The newly weds who had only met a few days prior, were naturally shy around each other, this having been an arranged marriage, something that is not considered ideal in today’s society, but was an accepted norm in the 50’s. But my grandparents were married just short of 50 years, they learned how to be around each other, they learned how to deal with one another and they learned how to love each other, a love that was so much stronger then the storm on the night of young Tonina’s arrival. Together they raised three daughters and had a diamond strength marriage. It may sound like the perfect happily ever after story, but along with all the good qualities of their life together, they also learned how to argue with each other, to get frustrated with one another and they both simply knew how to drive the other up the wall.

 

When days of love approach us, some of us cannot help ourselves but think of the great love stories of all time, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, the contemporary love story of Bella and Edward in the Twilight saga for some, I confess to not being above this practice either. However, no matter how poetic each of these stories are we are eventually struck by the realisation that love in the fictional context is different to true love in reality. Valentine’s Day for example, teaches us that in order to show your love for someone, you need to shower them with shop bought items. ‘Commercialised’ does the best way to describe 14 February, with hardly any of us knowing the true origin of Valentines or St Valentine himself.

 

I have witnessed that last minute rush into a store, where men and women alike are frantic to buy gifts of no real sentimental value, standing for a good half an hour deciding between two almost identical cards. My favourite memory of Valentine’s Day will always be of a well known couple to me, for a Valentines one year, among an assortment of gifts was a box of chocolates that the man in the relationship presented to his partner, the young lady’s reaction to these chocolates was this, “Are you trying to make me fat?” The next year, once again there was chocolate in the gift bag but this time a smaller quantity, and this time the question still makes me giggle to myself, “Are you telling me I am gaining weight?” As long as we keep attaching love to a price tag, none of us will ever learn the steps to life’s most complicated choreographed dance. Looking back to my grandparents, they never celebrated Valentine’s Day, and besides the milestones in their marriage, anniversary celebrations and gifts were kept to a minimum. On my last trip to Italy, I woke up the one morning, to find my grandmother moving around the kitchen the way I normally would find her, but this specific morning when I walked in I received that very unimpressed look that I am very familiar with, from my grandmother. I enquired as to what was wrong that morning and my grandmother simply said “your grandfather is driving me mad this morning.” The look on my grandfather’s face that morning said the same for my grandmother, so he decided to go out for some ciabatta, small Italian loaf bread, knowing very well that the bakery was on the corner of the street, the trip somehow managed to take three hours that morning. When he returned, a heated argument broke out between the two as to the where about of my grandfather, but later that day, after this confrontation, I watched my grandparents walk down the beach that lines the Adriatic sea holding hands, and it was not hard to notice even to strangers, that the old couple were very happy with each other.

 

Therefore maybe love isn’t a stuffed animal bought the morning of days like Valentine's Day as a last resort. And so if you have made a mistake on a special day of love, fret not, if this is the worst to come in your relationship you are lucky because "Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun."