Why does the heart represent love?

The universal symbol of love is a heart. It’s everywhere for St. Valentine’s Day – chocolates in heart-shaped boxes, a quickly drawn heart with mirrored comma shapes next to our names in cards, and even heart-shaped soaps are found on the shelves of Sealuxe!

But why the heart?

The heart was once associated with knowledge as well as feelings, according to Cameron Macphail and Hannah Daly who wrote an article for the Telegraph called “Valentine’s Day 2020: why cupid and the heart are associated with love”.

“Egyptians believed that the heart was the source of our memories, as well as our emotions. They placed so much value on the organ that they left it in people’s bodies during mummification, while throwing all other organs, including the brain, away.”

Even philosopher Aristotle believed the heart was an organ of intellect. Troubadours wrote poems about love and matters of the heart in the Middle Ages and it was common practice in Europe to have hearts buried separately from the body in places that were special. King Richard I, in 1199, had his heart buried in Rouen in Normandy and his body in Anjou, wrote Macphail and Daly.

What stole our heart was learning about how one teenager bought 900 carnations to give to every girl at his high school four years ago. It cost Hayden Godfrey of Smithfield, Utah, $450, money he raised by working part time.

“I firmly believe no girl should feel excluded on Valentine’s day,” Godfrey told Mashable. “If it was up to me, Valentine’s wouldn’t be a day about couples, but a day about loving your fellow human beings.”

It wasn’t a play, either. Godfrey has a girlfriend who approved her boyfriend’s idea.

Sky View High School vice-principal Kurt Hanks said the flowers were distributed to everybody with the help of several volunteers.

“He believes girls deserve a flower every Valentine’s Day,” Hanks said. “For whatever reason, he’s got really strong feelings about it.”

It was said he began sending Valentine’s Day flowers to friends when he was 14, after seeing how some girls did not receive anything which, according to his mom Erin Godfrey, “broke his heart.”

How blessed we would all be to have a Hayden Godfrey in our lives. And how blessed we would be to act so generously towards others.