The letters continue with more “Arlene, you are my everything” and “Without you, I don’t exist.”  I still feel like I’m invading into a very personal space by reading these.  

Staying in Okinawa gave Mickey access to china at great prices.  Of course, he was buying a set of dishes for his and Arlene’s new life together.  Over the course of the letters, they discuss which patterns they like, where will it be shipped, etc.  Mickey said he preferred to buy outright, not dealing with monthly payments and terms. That is a practice that I was always raised to do – if I couldn’t afford something outright, then I shouldn’t buy it at all. (This was the complete opposite of my ex-husband, who never hesitated to come home with something big and shiny, no matter how it was paid for. This included a boat.)

As sensible as he was about purchasing things, he was equally romantic about  finances.  In his mind, they “will always be wealthy in love and happiness, even if we don’t have a penny to our names.”

They often discussed my mom’s nursing training, and the patients she had been assigned.  In this letter Mickey marveled at the human spirit, where a very ill boy has such a sweet personality while there other kids who are healthy and then get into heaps of trouble. He chalks it up to not being able to understand G-d’s ways for why things are the way they are. But, he adds, he has complete confidence in “him” and is certain he knows what he’s doing.  This is another moment in time where I am moved by the fact that he had no way of knowing how life was going to work out.