Letters From Home
“To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.”~ Phyllis Theroux
Every day I’d go to my post box, key in hand, knowing that a letter would be there. A glimpse of the red, white and blue air mail envelope in the shadows of the box always lifted my heart. The letters followed me through my days and years in Europe. They traveled with me as I moved …from the makeshift cardboard box coffee table in Bayreuth, Germany, onto the red straw strung chair in the old Gothic quarter of Barcelona, Spain, to the shabby chic of the white nightstand in Montepellier, France.
When I’d leave my home base for adventures I knew that I could expect of mound of new letters for me to savor upon return. Little snapshots of my mother’s day, her life played back in front of my eyes, spelled out in smooth cursive letters on a lined page. With every letter she sent me a bit of her heart. Every letter carried an undertext that said; “Someone loves you. Someone cares.”
On Sunday all the town would be closed down. I’d lay across the bedspread with a pile of letters nestled near me. I sipped hot Chamomile tea in my favorite mug with the snail on it and smiled or cried or laughed or sometimes all three at once. When I was tired or lonely or upset, the letters soothed me with her soft voice. When I was happy they were there to laugh with me.
Home is not necessarily a place…
For me, ‘Home’ is sharing love with the people you love. It’s that place in your heart where you know you are unconditionally loved, cared for …simply adored. Every letter my mother sent me was a little piece of home, a little piece of her love. I can never thank her enough, or tell her what it meant to me to have those letters with me as my friend, guardian and quiet reassurance that I was, am and always will be loved.
