Tiffany Cramer was the high school salutatorian.
Lucas Burns was the class clown.
Tiffany was a blonde with a fair complexion. Lucas, born in Brazil, had dark hair and eyes.
Although they made an unlikely pair, the two fell in love.
"It works — opposites do attract," she said. "He's just so fun to be around."
But the newlyweds, who married in July, aren't spending Valentine's Day the way they used to. No romantic dates, teddy bears or flowers.
Lucas Burns, 22, has spent the last six months in Iraq while his wife, now seven and a half months pregnant, remains in Michigan.
For relationships split up by the war in Iraq, love is put to the ultimate relationship test. It's being separated by thousands of miles. It's the constant not knowing. It's the sporadic communication.
And today — when images of Cupid and hearts are pounded into people's brains — it can feel even lonelier.
"It makes it hard to pretend it's just another day," said April Clipper, a Family Assistance Center specialist through the Michigan Army National Guard.
But this year, Tiffany Burns, 21, deals with spending holidays minus her husband, just as she copes with everyday life without him.
"The more you keep yourself busy and don't have to dwell on things, the better it is," the physiology junior said.
She doesn't know Lucas' exact whereabouts or the specifics of his duties in the Army — only that he's somewhere in northern Iraq, occasionally goes on missions and has driven a Hummer.
Tiffany sends him care packages stuffed with beef jerky and communicates mostly through e-mails. Once a week, Lucas telephones home.
"He doesn't really tell me a lot, but I'm glad. I don't want to know. I just want to pretend everything's OK," Tiffany said. "I try not to watch the news."
Meeting Austin
It's been a whirlwind year for the newlyweds.
In July, Tiffany learned Lucas was leaving for Iraq sooner than she had expected.
The couple, who had dated since their sophomore year of high school, rushed to marry in a courthouse two weeks before he was deployed.
Instead of a white wedding dress, Tiffany wore jeans and high heels.
"We weren't going to tell anybody," she said. "We were just going to keep it hush-hush."
A month later, she found out she was pregnant. Tiffany gave in, finally telling her family about her secret marriage and pregnancy.
Now on this Thursday afternoon, almost two weeks before Valentine's Day, Burns brings her mother, Debra Cramer, to her second ultrasound appointment in East Lansing.
In the small, dimly lit doctor's office, Tiffany is transfixed on the computer screen as a nurse points out the unborn child's features — like how baby Austin Lucas sticks the side of his hand in his mouth, or the way his hair grows on the back of his head.
"There's the heart beating, there," the nurse says to Tiffany, while Cramer watches, trying to make sense out of the ultrasound.
Tiffany asks the nurse if she can create a 3-D ultrasound and tape it.
"I was just thinking it'd be nice to send to my husband for Valentine's Day," she said.
A few minutes later, the nurse displays the 3-D ultrasound that captures the fetus' side profile, showing everything from his forehead to his closed eyes and his upper lip.
"He looks just like Lucas," Cramer says as the ultrasound machine gently hums in the background. "Can't you see Lucas in him?"
Tiffany keeps her eyes set on the image of Austin. She credits the unborn baby for helping her cope with the loneliness of having her husband gone.
Although Lucas isn't scheduled to come home until August, Tiffany isn't sure when he'll return.
"They can't say the exact day they're coming back for security reasons," said Clipper, who works with families split up by war. "Historically, from what we've seen, it's been about 11 1/2 to 12 months boots on ground."
But even then, Lucas could return to combat overseas because he has three years left on his Army contract.
"It's hard not having him here," said Tiffany, whose expected due date is a week before she'll take her final exams this semester. "The chances of him coming home (for the birth) are very slim."
She almost has finished the nursery — painting the room a sherbet shade of green. The matching changing table and crib — a six-hour project — are finally put together.
"I'm going to be excited once I'm able to hold Austin," Tiffany said. "But to see (Lucas) come home and hold his son for the first time" will be even better.
Practicing goodbyes
It was a summer day, almost two years ago, when Jen Fisher met her first love.
The hot sun beat down on the guests at her friend's high school graduation party, so Fisher invited a group of them back to her house to swim.
Steve Lynch was the only one who showed up. Three days later, they officially started dating.
"It was fate, I guess you could call it," Fisher said.
But their new relationship was cut short when Lynch left for boot camp in California.
"It's a big test on your relationship," Fisher said. "You don't have that face-to-face connection."
In three months, Lynch called twice. Fisher counted the minutes — 12.
"I didn't even know who it was. I hadn't heard his voice in so long," said Fisher, a horse management freshman. "There were so many things I wanted to say, but I didn't have enough time."
Fisher's not alone.
Allison Stiteler always knew her boyfriend, 20-year-old Drew Abbott, would go to Iraq because they started dating after he moved to a base in North Carolina.
"It doesn't hit you until it actually happens," the business administration and Spanish freshman said. "We always knew it was going to happen, but it doesn't faze you until he's actually gone."
Before, the couple talked on the phone up to eight times a day. Now, their conversations are shortened to about twice a week. Abbott usually calls in the early morning after he finishes his shift installing computer software with the U.S. Marine Corps.
She says she never knows when she's going to talk to him next.
Fisher and Lynch turned to a more old-fashioned way of correspondence.
"We wrote lots and lots of letters," Fisher said. "I have every one he sent me."
Even now, she hasn't thrown them out, keeping stacks of nearly 80 letters bundled together.
A week after Valentine's Day, Lynch, 19, will leave for his base in North Carolina. On March 27, he will depart to Iraq for at least six months with the U.S. Marine Corps.
Before Lynch leaves, Fisher said she's trying to squeeze in time to make up for the next six months by going to the movies or eating out for Valentine's Day.
"It's just nice having each other near," the 18-year-old Fisher said. "A lot of people take for granted their time together.
"They don't really understand what it's like to miss someone."
