In my clearing out fervor, I came across a box of old letters. These aren't the ones Pat and I exchanged, which I also saved. These are from friends and relatives reacting to my impulsive decision to stay in Florida after I visited Pat there. (Long story I'll leave for later.) Of course, it was before we were married but, no, we didn't live together. What fun to come across these! They're so old, I'm surprised the paper didn't crumble to dust.
Called sister Betty and read some of hers--we laughed over them, but maybe with tears in our eyes. There are long, chatty ones from Joan W., my best friend through high school and a bridesmaid in my wedding. There are shorter, somewhat disapproving ones from two of my three brothers. There are notes from people I barely remember, and many from my mother, Considering the consternation I recall she expressed at the time (and no wonder), they're surprisingly warm. All, of course, remind me to go to confession and say my prayers. Guess she wanted me to arm myself against--uh, temptation.
The letters are chock full of references to people with whom I grew up--my darling Aunt Maggie, Mrs, Keating, Cassie Wayland, Eddie Scanlon, Matt Gallagher, and on and on. So many are gone--a melancholy number, including my friend, Joan--dead before they were old enough to collect Social Security. (Geez, am I thinking like an old lady!) Here are birthday cards, too--one from my mother wishing me a "happy twentieth." Even for somebody that young, I think I was remarkably dense. I took for granted my place in this small, warm, vanished world on a tiny barrier island clinging to its place in the Atlantic Ocean.
I don't really wish to go back, but I do wish, and will wish till the day I die, that I could see again those citizens of my youth.
And tell them how much I love them.