The Correspondent

by Virginia Evans

I had him for so much less time than I’ve lived without him, and yet his presence is enormous, though I keep it to myself. It is as if I’ve swallowed a hot air balloon but try not to let on.

Daan and I were happy, even though I didn’t know it was happiness at the time because it felt like busyness and exhaustion and financial stress and self-doubt.

The stretches on the high, windblown road are far commoner than the stopovers in comfort, and aren’t we always trying to get back to the happier times? I think that is what it feels like, with Gill. I’ve spent my life trying to get back to having him even though I know I cannot.

Imagine all that you have said to another, all the commentary you have exchanged with friends over drinks, over the phone with colleagues and distant relatives, all the prattle sent quickly, mindlessly over e-mail, messages typed into your cellular phone, and really, the sum of this interpersonal communication is the substance of your life, relationships being, as we know by now in our old ages, the meat of our lives; but all of that is gone.

Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?

when someone(s) treats you poorly, it is a reflection of him or herself and the misery within the heart of them.

but as a child I imagined this lovely secret, that Mary Poppins was my real mother and that one day she would float down into my yard on the handle of an umbrella and declare I was her daughter, and she would explain the whole reason for having farmed me out, and then she would settle, and take me back and mind me with that perfect combination of wonder and predictability,

These are thoughts I’ve had, but not in an urgent sense, just a little bruise I’d press on every once in a while.)

Grief shared, I think, can produce two outcomes. Either you bind yourselves together and hold on for dear life, or you let go and up goes a wall too high to be crossed. For us it was the latter.

I think I mentioned to her that being a clerk requires sharp writing skills, and then it was her wanting to know how I learned to write well, so I told her it’s just practice, like everything.

It’s harder now, of course, because with the internet people are e-mailing (it’s faster, simpler, less fussy than having to have the materials, the pen, the moment at the desk, the stamp, etc.) and it can be more difficult to find an address, but usually if you really try, you will. And one ought to try. An e-mail can in no way replace a written letter. It does concern me that one day all the advancement of technology will do away with the post, but I hope to be dead and gone long before then.

I believe one ought to be precious with communication. Remember: words, especially those written, are immortal. Sometimes, Caroline, the easiest inroad is to begin with a thank you, for a gift or a kindness or a letter, you know, and then take it from there. Answer every question they’ve asked, and ask your own, and you will have created a never-ending circuit of curiosity and learning.

I know you think of me as your mother only, but please remember, inside I am also just a girl.

I will do my very best, though the gluttonous eyes have nearly quit.

I guess there’s no bottom to a person, but I feel you have left fewer stones unturned than anyone else who’s ever passed through, and it’s taken me some time to recognize how knowing you has been like coming in from the cold, lonely road to find a warm fire and a table laid, so thank you for that, Theodore.