When I was young
I don’t remember when my mom showed me these letters. I do remember growing up, asking lots of questions about my dad, learning bits and pieces about him but not really knowing who he was as a person – what music he liked, what he ate for breakfast, what his favorite film was, did he have a favorite baseball team, etc.
There were times when I’d get really sad and cry. I remember one time in second grade, I was 7 years old. Suddenly I became very upset in class – I was thinking about how much I missed him. But how could you miss someone you never really knew? These instances were infrequent. For the most part, I’ve lived my life knowing there was a person who was my dad for a short period of time.
The best way I can describe this is as if it was a story, written about someone else. I’ve read it lots of times and it’s very familiar, but it didn’t happen to me. Except it did.
When I became ready
Some time in the last 20 years my mom handed me a box filled with letters and told me “These are yours.” I jumped at the chance to pore over them and read about what who he was and what life was like for him during that time. What I didn’t anticipate was becoming overwhelmed with dueling emotions: an aching sadness every time I read a few letters; and then also a feeling of intrusion, as these letters are intimate conversations between two people in love.
These letters have traveled with me across the country and back, made it through a divorce, and accompanied me into a new marriage. Now, having survived 2020, I think I am finally ready to share this experience, and tell the story of my father and mother and how this shaped my life.
NOTE: For readability, some of the letters will appear re-typed.