Letters From Home

Veering wildly from things political, I would like to reflect (in a meandering fashion) on the cleaning out of a closest this weekend. One of the seldom reported blessings of being a disorganized person is that when you go through boxes you can make wonderful discoveries, because you have no real idea or memory of what you originally placed in the boxes.

Such was my experience Saturday. I found the usual hodge-podge of my daughters' art and stories from elementary school, always a treasure-trove. I found boxes and boxes and more boxes of pictures with no semblance of order which, really, I will put in albums some day. Really.

But by far my favorite find was a wooden box of old letters. There was no rhyme or reason to this particular grouping of missives. There was one from me to a friend just before I left for college when I was seventeen (how did I get that back?). There was one from me to my dad just weeks before I got married in 1973, and one from my grandmother to my mother just weeks after my parents' wedding (everyone was still talking about how lovely it was) in 1930. There were multiple letters from my mother to her family when, as a girl, she and a friend went on a trip to Colorado. Her detailed accounts of what they saw, who they met, how often they bathed, where they ate, just radiate with girlish excitement. Her life stretched before her with endless promise. She begged for letters from home, and promised on her part to save some stories for the telling. Can you imagine sending and receiving multiple letters while on vacation?

There was one to me from daddy which detailed his use of a new fertilizer and asked if they could borrow my typewriter (the one they bought me for college) over the summer.

I think my favorite was one from my dad to my mom in the early years of their marriage. He was writing to her on the day he buried his grandmother, and spoke of how he wept at her grave, how he and a cousin held his mother up during the service. He called my mother "baby."

We have in our family letters that my brothers wrote when they were in the Air Force and Navy serving abroad. Those letters were like gold, and everyone clamored for their turn to read the latest from John or Tom. It went like this: John wrote my parents. My parents either sent or brought the letter to Mom and Dolly (my grandparents), Mommee (my paternal grandmother), Aunt Maurine and Uncle Joe, my other Uncle Joe -- you get the picture; and then finally, after everyone had greedily read them over and over, they came back to my parents for safe-keeping. Those letters were valuable currency.

It saddens me (and I realize I am not original in this lament) that future generations won't stumble across such jewels when they clean out their closets. I love email, skype, cell phones, and everything that makes staying in touch with friends and family so quick and easy, but there is just nothing like unfolding an aged, much handled, oft-read, piece of paper and reading love in and between the lines from folks long gone, including myself at seventeen, or at twenty-four.

Every year I vow that I will hand-write notes and letters, but I rarely do. And don't you miss the excitement of the postman coming, looking for familiar handwriting from someone dear as you shuffle through bills and ads? Now, aside from the occasional baby-shower thank you note, nothing personal comes my way via the U. S. mail, and that saddens me, too.

But in 1966, after my mother and brother dropped me off at college, I received these words from my mom, " Everything seems so unreal about your being in college. I feel all numb and would really like to bawl but won't let myself...I haven't the words to tell you how proud we are of you and the confidence we have in you...may God bless and keep you."

Message received, Mom. Thanks.