Letters, Written and Unwritten

Ever since I was a little girl, I was a letter writer.  It can be argued that I’m more myself on paper than I am face to face.  It’s not bravery I find behind paper.  It’s truth and thoughtfulness.  I think words filter differently through my fingers than they do through my lips.  For that I am very grateful.

Letters have given me a link to my past that most people of our generation do not have.  I have over a decade worth of cards and letters in my possession.  Tonight I went through the letters I could find, searching for a photo or a note of a friend who recently passed away.  Luckily I found something. 

It doesn’t make things better, but it does help to give some perspective.  The words of 17 year olds and 19 year olds ring through those pages.  Laugh out loud moments, bitter sweet words of wisdom.  Real pain.  Real life.  We weren’t impossibly angst ridden all the time.  Sometimes we were just real.  Sometimes we were incredibly honest.  And sometimes we were all those things inside one letter.  I’d give anything to have the ones in between that were never written.  I’d  give anything to have written more myself. 

Today I am grateful for the letters that were written.  Today I am sad for my lost friend.  I wish I had been a better friend to  him.  I wish I could have done more somehow.  It’s been twenty years since I’d seen him but I’m hit by the loss of him much harder than I would have imagined.  It’s all part of that ripple that was started so many years ago.  Thank you, Daniel, for being my friend. I will see you again some day.