While cleaning out some of my grandmother's house, we found a box of her memories. Lots and lots of pictures, tons of newspaper clippings, report cards and classwork of her 5 children and even a few pictures my girls had drawn were a small portion of what we found, but somewhere in that box of memories we ran across what I feel may be the most valuable find....my papa's love letters to my grandmother. Kept neatly in a rose colored stationary holder, tied with pink satin ribbon. I can just imagine my grandmother holding the box closely to her chest after adding the newest letter to the box. Many letters had lipstick kiss marks on the letters where she had kissed his words in the letters.....
Just spending the little bit of time looking through part of the letters, I felt like I was stepping back in time and spying on a love story I had never heard. Yes, my grandparents were married for over 50 years....closer to 60 I believe before my papa died. They lived a long life together but I'm not sure I ever saw this love that they shared. Yes, I know they loved each other, but the love I saw was tempered by 5 children, 8 grandchildren, 5 great-grandchildren and finally one great-great grandchild. They were hard years with many heartaches along the way. They loved and lost, cried and bled, worked hard and lived modestly. But before all of this....they loved each other....with a young love. A fierce love. A passionate love. A tender love.
How blessed I feel to have these letters!!! I am slowly putting them in chronological order to the best of my knowledge. Most have been dated by my papa, who seemed to write almost every day! I plan to read them after they are in order. The few I have read have already made me cry. To hear the love in my papa's words and the loneliness he felt being away from my granny is so heart warming. To hear him call her "baby" and "darling" and "precious wife" during his time of serving in the war, and then working so far from home and longing to have her with him. I feel drawn back to the 1940s and a time in history where you had little but loved much.
This is an adventure that I am both excited and fearful to start on. Granny died a month ago today. I still haven't cried as much as I know I need to. I miss her....and have many many regrets over the past years of the moments I missed with her. Delving into her history and seeing a part of her life that she didn't openly share with me...or anyone else...makes me nervous. I would never want her to be mad at me. I have walked that thin line of knowing whether she was proud of me or not for most of my life. I just pray I can honor her and Papa through this. Is it time for me to write a book....maybe. But this one will be the story of my grandparents who shared a very real love that held them together for more than 60 years and left our family a legacy that we are just now beginning to understand.
Hang on tight....you may be my sounding board as I venture down the emotional highway.
