“What are you hoping to get out of them?” my wife asked. To
which I’d reply, “If you’re parents abandoned you, abused you, or sent you to
boarding school in Siberia there’s always a ‘Why.’”
I’m reading through some letters in a box. They were with
my mom’s things, fifteen years ago when we cleaned out her house. A shoe box I
put in storage. Forgot I had them until the unit was unloaded. Letters from my
dad to my mom. Letters dad wrote to my mom from before my birth until I was
seven, my sister five. A one-way conversation.
There are relationships where one partner’s vibrant character,
and purposeful lifestyle pulls the other clod out of catastrophe and into a smooth
orbit. Not our story. My parents were arcing toward collision. To avoid it my
parents lived separate lives, three-thousand miles apart.
The iconic Civil-war letter goes something like, “I would
brave hot musket shot and cannon-ball fire to experience your red-hot loving
again.” Those were not my dad’s letters. Writing from New Jersey to my mother
in the San Fernando Valley the letters contained four basic sentences,
incorporated four themes: the weather, repentance, money, and plea.
Two pages, handwritten; “It is March, and I am still
sleeping in my long underwear.” “Sorry I missed you when I called last night.
The boys and I went out. They bought a round. I bought a round…” “Did you
receive the money from Rochester? They owe me about 140 dollars.” Often, there
was a question about bringing us to visit or to live in the east. Neither ever
happened.
The explosion came in high school. Legal divorce. My sister
and I were not surprised. The letters survived, in a box. In a closet. Devoid
of answers.
Photo by Ire Photocreative on Unsplash
