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A quote: “Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” ~~ Franklin P. Jones
I’ll start with a story …
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People ask how we did it. How our high school sweetheart stage survived college. I smile, “we wrote.”
Such an old-fashioned thing? Yep! Weekly letters. Even after marrying, envelopes appeared each Monday at breakfast.
I can’t forget that September morning, bright and clear, a usual back-to-school flurry of kids and cereal, hurried kisses and promises for later.
Later never came for us, dear. I’m left with your last phone message – so calm even, even when …
And the box you kept of my letters.
20 years later, and I still write you weekly, my love – and add to the box.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Dribbl3r says: Philatelist: fancy word for a simple hobby. I nearly served time because a parent was protecting his daughter from me at a Girl Scout meeting.
I dislike corresponding. The sender waxes poetic about accomplishments or drones on about illness. Neither appeal. As a stamp collector, letters are important to me. The colors, themes, and geometry of the stamp intrigue me.
“She always loved you. Her letters always contained a special stamp,” he said.
My ex-wife had died. Her letters were my inheritance. A common stamp defiled those I had returned. Valuable stamps adorned the envelopes she quit sending.
I groaned.
When each of us moved away from home, Mom began to write us a weekly letter, following a tradition that her grandmother had begun during World War II, when my great-uncles went off to Europe and the Pacific to fight tyranny. Not a quick e-mail, but actual paper letters in envelopes with stamps on them. She always loved to find beautiful stamps to put on them, and did her best to avoid using the same design twice.
I was at Purdue, working on a mech-E degree, and I’d really gotten used to those notes from home. When she mentioned getting ready to go to New York for some kind of meeting, I was excited for her. She’d always had her various home businesses, and now that us kids were out of the house, one of her projects was finally taking off.
When I saw the news about the attack, the first thought that went through my mind was and now I won’t get any more letters from Mom. I was walking right past the dorm mailboxes, and I automatically went to check mine. There were a couple of notices from the Engineering Department, and a letter.
Because of the trip, Mom had mailed the week’s letters early. I could hardly read the words through the tears I was fighting back.
That letter was in my pocket when I went to the ROTC office.
Dupin says: This is where those old letters were stashed. I’d been told about them, but had never seen them. My grandparents’ infamous WWII letters that passed secrets past the censors.
It was simple. It was ingenious. It was preplanned. Fake aunts and uncles indicated ship locations. Each of them had a list of the fake relatives.
Granddad was in the Navy. Grandma was home pregnant with Mom when he left. They’d correspond. She’d write, full of news and love from home. He’d write back, asking how a fake relative was doing. Mom would check her list and know where he was.
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