Wednesday, February 3, 2016

love letters.

Being loved is a fulfilling emotion especially if the person you love returns the love. We all know romantic love or know about it , but the love I am writing about is not romantic. It  is a different sort of love. For me the moment of feeling love and the returning that love came often and the postman brought it.

My childhood was spent away from a close nuclear family. My mother had been advised to move from Pennsylvania's climate,and my father was lucky enough get a job in Nebraska. So they moved and at age five I was no longer part of the pack of family made of numerous cousins. I always thought they were the fortunate ones as they lived with or near my two grandmothers. Now years later I realize perhaps I was the truly lucky one as I knew them in way  the other cousins could  not do.

My  grand mothers wrote me letters. They talked family, weather, birds, activities and all the mundane things that  a conversation might have held.They did not use the word love often but the action of those weekly letters( one from Ohio and one from Pennsylvania) kept me connected to them.They reached out to be part of my life, and I  returned the love by writing a letter back.

Letters came and went until they were no longer able to write. Each letter brought the woman who wrote tome. I could picture Grandma Flossie sitting by her window watching cardinals as she wrote , and  I could see Grandma Janie sitting with her tea and custard close by as  she penned her letter. The visions brought these letters gave me a base that an only child of older parents with no close family needed.

I learned about them. Flossie loved cardinals and baking. Janie  was a saver  and crocheter, Both were deeply  faithful within their different faiths, and to both family was first and foremost. From family stories , I knew that had tempers,but their letters never betrayed that,  though I imagine both had mellowed by the time the letters began.

Reading those letters I felt loved  for no good reason except  that I existed. I tried to send back that emotion as I wrote of school, pets ,minor bumps in my life,  the weather and my parents. What was said  was not important but the act of communication was. The letters marked my life and now years after their passing  A cardinal in my yard or earl grey tea steaming in a cup creates memories of being loved and loved in return which is why still today a handwritten letter in my mailbox is a blessing.