writing doodle - love letter

She lifted the letter out of the delicate envelope slowly and meticulously.  Each time she breathed on the paper, it seemed to become more fragile, more delicate. One day, she would open the envelope and find nothing but tattered remains.

The letter was written in tiny, cramped script.  Blue ink on what had once been unlined white paper, now yellow with age.  The page still smelled of his aftershave lotion.  Even though forty-five years had past, she kept this one letter in a shoebox with a cotton ball she periodically soaked in the same brand.  She inhaled and smiled.  How much she loved the smell of him, the feel of him. The memory of him.

Now this is all she had.  One letter, a shoebox, a cotton ball and her memories.  It wasn't enough and yet it was everything.

Running her right index finger over each word as though she was writing them herself, she smiled.  He had taken the time to write her once more before he left school to return to Switzerland. 

Dearest Lindsey,


These many months have been the world to me.  Though words can never express it adequately, know that I will love you forever.


If only your parents had understood.  If things could have been different.


Perhaps it is better this way. Live the life they have planned for you and be as happy as you can.


Always yours,


Fritz

A light tap on her bedroom door let her know that her brief return to a different time was now over.  Her grandchildren were going to go home the next day and she needed to make the most of her time with them.

"Come in," she said.

"Grandma, can I ask a question," her seventeen year-old granddaughter asked.

"Of course.  I always have time for you."

"I think I blew it with Andy at school..."

A lifetime passed as the girl told the tale of a love that might have been but was allowed to escape, probably never to come again.

"I understand perfectly," the grandmother said.  "The same circumstance happened to me, but a little differently."

"Really?"

"Sure.  It took me a long time to let go of the one I let get away.  The one who could have been everything I thought I wanted. I want you to know that I've never told anyone else about it."  She had lived the life with the man her parents had selected and done her duty by him for forty-two years until he died.  With each move, each horrific family loss, each unfathomable circumstance, she had hidden away with her letter and her shoebox.

"How long did it take you to get over it?"

"Ah, that's the thing.  It isn't a matter of letting time heal anything.  It is what you do with your time that counts."