What a gift it was to be able to read my parents's love letters to one another back in the 1940's. They were in typewritten form, which lost some of the charm, but the words were intact. This week I was blessed to be able to see and hold the actual love letters sent across the pond between my grandmother and grandfather in 1911. They were newly engaged and he had to return to his native England for the summer, a distance not so quickly traversed as it is today. He does not state
how long the voyage took, and it goes without saying that there were no phone calls, much less video chats to ease their longing. Hence the need to wrap their affections in ink, and onto paper with the fierce desire that it hang on to it for the time it would take to reach its beloved recipient. Hopefully devotion does not go stale like the food probably did.
"I have just read your letter and it has made me feel more happy and peaceful than I can tell you," he writes. "I had worried quite a deal about you- I had the nerve to think that you would be lonely, and the thought of you being unhappy was harder to bear than my own trouble at having to leave you." It would seem that his care for her supersedes any thought for his own well being. This is perhaps the simplest benchmark for genuine love I have yet encountered.
As chance would have it the name of his vessel is remarkably like that of his great great granddaughter, the one he will never meet. Pop Pop is on the Olympic, and my daughter's daughter's name is Olympia. There is a century between them, a barrier even more daunting than the Atlantic.
"Our separation is only an external hardship." Let me pause here to note that a portion of his musings is dedicated to the actual difficulties of sailing on a ship in open waters. The swelling of the currents has a significant impact on his capacity to eat, to walk, and to sleep. Which sounds hard. I am also intrigued that he uses the word swell in two contexts. It refers to the motion of the water that carries him, as well as the quality of their life together.
Marjorie writes back.
"I am most grateful that it is only miles, and not coldness that separates us. When we feel that we are so far apart we can look at that picture you took of us together. I'm sure it will cheer us up. I have it hanging in my room so that it is the first thing I see in the morning. I feel as though I could talk to you thru it, and you smile back at me so happily. I'm sorry you could not talk to me so well because I am laughing so hard I couldn't listen very well."
It is marvelous to me that she was laughing even then. She who would one day raise twelve children. Plus I can't help noticing that in an age where photographs were rare, commercial flights unheard of, and texting happened through Morse Code, two young people found other means with which to stay close.
