Letters

I stood at the window today and watched a piece of my life drive away in the garbage truck. It was an interesting moment, one in which part of me wanted to run after the truck and tell him to give me back my garbage, so I could go back in time and re-read the letters I'd thrown away. But reality hit and I realized I'd never be able to run down the stairs fast enough to get outside before they drove away.

I'd been going through a box of papers, bits and pieces, odds and ends of flotsam and jetsam. Some actually dating back over 40 years. There were letters written to me from people who are no longer a part of my life, people in fact who are no longer living and no one in my life now would have any conception as to who those people were or what they meant to me at one or another point in time. Life marched on, lives were lived, and lost. The minutia of life as chronicled in the letters would be of little interest to anyone else but me. So I made a decision, and the letters were thrown away. And now I wonder if I regret it, but I can't because it's just one more thing that someone, whoever is left after I'm no longer among the living, will have to throw away. The letters that were sent to me, weren't from anyone important, to anyone now, just good friends who either passed away or passed out of my life many years ago. They meant something to me at one time, and I kept them as a measure of respect for the friendships we used to share, even if they had no idea that I was keeping them.

Some of the cards I open are bittersweet, the authors long passed away, and they are missed to this day, family members I'll not see again. And I keep them, even though their memories will live on long past the time I finally leave this existence. My way of keeping them close in my heart still.

My eyes tear when I read a missive from my father, telling me that he hopes I can read his English, and then he adds a postscript in Danish, and I am comforted by him, his love reaches beyond the grave and into my life 32 years later. That he made the effort to write in a language, his second language, one learned when he was in his late forties, so that I could read it. Something I think I appreciate more now than when I was in my twenties and first received the letter. And it happens it was the last letter he sent me, he let go of life not long after. And then the next card I pull out is a birthday card from my mother and when I look at her signature, so laboriously written after a paralyzing stroke, I'm struck again by the love that she gave me. She made the effort to write out my name, wish me Happy Birthday, and signed it Love, Mom. And I know how long that took her and how hard it was for her to do.

I find a note written from a long vanished friend and remember how we used to pass notes back and forth in class. Somehow we were never caught, but thanks to my keeping the note, I can go back to Junior High for a minute or so and remember. And marvel at the insecurity, the innocence and the joy we felt when a certain boy liked or didn't like us.

So many good memories, all tied up in a box, and I decide to keep at least one of each letter, maybe sometime in another few years I'll pull out the box again and reread them, and travel back in time, just for a few minutes. I'll visit with my parents, my niece, my sister, my friends long gone. And shed another tear or two and remember them as they were, and rejoice that I once had them in my life.