A memoir in letters
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People my age at some point come to a realization that it would be a good idea to cull through the boxes of stuff accumulated over the years, at least to spare our children from such an effort after we have, ahem, moved on, so to say. In my case, it really was to reduce their workload, not to hide anything, although once I got going, there was plenty I did want to hide.
I started with the boxes of letters I had carted around the world. I was actually saving the stamps, but, in my haste, I just stuffed the letters back in the envelopes and put them in boxes. No particular order. I convinced myself that I was a stamp collector and would turn to that vocation in a big way once I retired. You can imagine these boxes, randomly stuffed, full to the brim. There were four or five of them. As we moved around the world, they moved with us and the letters piled up, with stamps from across the U.S., Africa, Latin America and, of course, the small town where my parents were living, Pomfret Center Connecticut.
Many of those letters did end up in the fireplace, but not the ones from my father who had recently passed away. He had written a letter to his children, each week, for almost 30 years. The same letter, typed, with a handwritten note in the top corner usually. At first, he would insert in his typewriter five blank pages, separated by carbon papers, making the letters of uneven quality. We each wished our copy would be the top one from his typewriter. He then advanced to photocopying, running to the local stationery store each Monday before he headed to the post office to send them off. Clockwork: Sunday evening writing, Monday morning copying and mailing.
And I saved them, as did my brothers and sister until she passed away. It may have been her letters which my father found clearing out her apartment which spurred him to begin saving a copy as well, for the record.
So, one early morning before work, I cut through the tape of the first box, blowing the dust off the top, and took up the top letter, with scissors in hand to cut off the stamps from the corners of the envelopes. After looking through a few of the letters from my father, I hesitated. There were gems among these pages, little sparkles of inspiration and feel-good stories that certainly would appeal to our immediate family, but perhaps to others as well.
So, using the laborious technology at the time, I decided to scan each letter, and select the items that capture his personality, and the place and time he lived in.
Beyond the refreshings of my memories of college, young adulthood, marriages and children, jobs and travels and visits home, it was also probably part of my grieving process, part therapy to talk with and listen to my father, realizing that while there was much I would have wanted to ask him, I was able to uncover nuggets of his life, his values, his advice that I had simply forgotten, buried in these letters.
So, it turned out to be a labor of love. For many years, I figured it took one hour to scan five letters, read through them and select any potentially worthwhile excerpt, and cut and paste them into other documents organized thematically, like grandchildren, travels, pets, health, culture, etc. Do the math, five letters an hour, well over a thousand letters. I started in 2005 and finished during the pandemic. Totally worth it.
But all my effort was nothing compared to the discipline and perseverance he showed, drafting a letter each week for 29 years. That’s devotion and affection. All bound up in one volume, Have a Great Week! Love! That title is how he ended each letter.
Hopefully, my next clean-out project won’t lead me down as long a path as this one did.
History All Around 