The Letter, Part Two

 

AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS PIECE IS SCHEDULED TO BE PUBLISHED AT PURPLECLOVER.COM- TODAY MARKS 36 YEARS SINCE MY DAD PASSED AWAY

The Letter-

My dad wrote 4 love letters in his life. This piece is about the last one

April 28, 1978-

"There are only three love letters that I have written. The first, in March of 1943 to my mother - which I wrote after having been on an army transport for 47 days, had been terribly unhappy, and felt that after 25 years of experiencing the love that only a mother can show, that I did want to tell my mother my thoughts before the tropical sun addled my little brain."

"The next love letter was written in 1944 to Dot - after I returned to British Guyana from a month long furlough and during which she agreed to marry me. That letter was written as an expression of the love that I finally discovered." 

"The third love letter was written in the summer of Gail's birthday, her 16th.... I realized at that time what a wonderful young lady Gail was. I told her so and told her that I knew she would mature into a wonderful person."

"And now, at the ripe old age of 60 years and 1 month, I am writing my fourth and last love letter - and to a man and a woman too!" 

My father was dying when he wrote this letter. He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer the year before, and he would succumb to the disease before the end of 1979. So, when he mused that this would be his last love letter, it fills me with an overwhelming sadness.

This letter was found, this week, by the son of Hope and Max, the people to whom the 1978 letter was written. As I put these thoughts on paper, Hope lays dying. She carried my father's note for the past 37 years. It was located among her important papers. 

In 1948, two young couples moved into the same garden apartment complex. My dad and Dot, my mom, had been married in 1945, but has lived with my dad's parents for more than two years. New housing was in scarce supply as World War II meant that all resources were focused not on building homes but on building a strong military. Max and Hope were also newlyweds, Hope a stunning beauty and Max equally as handsome. And from the first there was an inseparable bond that grew between these couples.

If we are very lucky in this life, we are able to know and appreciate the love for a parent, for a partner, for a child. My dad was very lucky. But good fortune  also allowed him to experience the love of friends who were so much more than that. 

To me, they were always Aunt Hope and Uncle Max. In writing his letter, my dad reflected on what it meant to be something more than mere family by circumstance. "To friends, or even ordinary blood relatives, I write a prosaic note of appreciation. But you are not friends, you are not relatives resulting from an accident of birth or from marriage- you are as I think Goethe wrote "relatives by choice."  To such, I write love letters."

But unlike parents or partners or children, expressing love that one feels for someone who has made your life so much richer, does not always flow easily. At least it didn't for my dad. "Perhaps because society has, since our birth, taught us to mask our feelings in public... we have lost our ability to express our feelings for one another. So- you will have to accept my inability to express my love -(one of my many shortcomings) and accept my plain, simple unadorned statement that I love you both, deeply." 

Hope has, in her dying days, allowed my sister and me to hear our father's voice, to listen to him wax eloquent on his gratitude for the love that was in his life and in his heart, to bring his words back to us after such a long, long absence.

For all of us who feel that death is a final chapter, this week's discovery seems like I was permitted to peer into the secrets of the universe. 

Farewell Aunt Hope. And thank you for your most unexpected and overwhelming final gift.

And thank you dad. It was wonderful speaking with you again. I love you.