by Aimee Schrader

Created on: February 12, 2009   Last Updated: February 14, 2009

I woke up with a pounding headache. I blinked my eyes three or four times to clear the blurriness, and realized that it wasn't just any headache, but I was on my way to a migraine. I rolled over to see my sleeping husband drooling into his pillow. We've been married for eight years and I still wonder at the way his skin, though heavily tanned, still looks pale next to mine. Our parents and friends all cringed when we said we were getting married. They tried to talk us out of it, too. Oh, it was okay for us to date and fool around, but marriage was just too much. "It may not be you that suffers Raesha, but it'll be your children who do," my dad said one night as he pleaded with me not to marry a white boy. But I did, and I haven't been sorry.

My oldest daughter Sasha came into the room. Her Valentine's Day party was today. With a migraine coming on I was glad that I made the cupcakes for her class last night. She was having trouble deciding what to wear, her pink sweater with hearts, or plain red sweater with sparkles. I told her to go with the hearts. Then I snuggled up to Todd and kissed his neck. Thank goodness it was his turn to drop the kids off at school, then I could take my migraine medication and go back to sleep for an hour.

Todd kissed me; I told him about my head, so he held me for a few minutes, then got up and got ready for work. I curled back up and went to sleep.

The phone rang. I looked up to see that I had overslept. It was probably Nadia from work checking to make sure I was alright. When I picked up the phone it was instead the secretary at the kids' school. My son James had been in a fight again. The secretary informed me that he was fine, but that there would be a meeting after school today with the principal and the other student's parents. Todd and I needed to be there by 4:00. Just what I needed to be doing on the evening of Valentine's Day. Instead of a romantic dinner with Todd, I'd be hashing out an anti-bullying plan with the principal. Thank goodness the migraine medication had done its trick.

I got up slowly, I always seemed to be a little light headed after a migraine. Then I called into work, got ready, and went to the office. I turned up the radio to hear Justin Timberlake and Beyonce's "Until the End of Time", and loitered in the parking garage to hear the end of the song before heading into the office.

I called Todd after I got to my desk to let him know about our little meeting with the principal. Then I spent the rest of the

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