Letters from the Lost

It was moving day. That was the way that her kids had put it, the day that she would leave behind her whole life, everything that she had worked for, the house that she had lived in, loved in, lost in, and go find herself in a sterile room. Of course, the house looked nothing like she remembered it now. It was all boxes, all her memories packed up into tidy little boxes. They were labeled, of course, but her old eyes had a hard time piecing together what those cramped fonts said from so far away. Part of it may have been that she just didn’t want to. She didn’t want to think about trying to fit an entire house worth of memories into a room. It would be her room, but in another sense, it wouldn’t. She was just borrowing it for the time being. Then, when she was gone, it would be someone else’s to borrow. Forever on and on, the cycle would continue of geriatric wanderers, lost to their families and their properties, shuffled into rooms that, despite the effort, never really lost that sameness. 

A sighed pulled through her, taking more energy than it used to. Everything took more energy than it used to. Fondly, she remembered the days when she sat in this chair, this one with the now- broken arm, and told her grandkids never to grow old. She was old then, but she felt infinitely older now. What she wouldn’t give to be only that old again, the old that wasn’t devalued by society. The clock was ticking from one of the boxes, but she couldn’t hear it. She just knew that it was ticking. She knew that time was still going in the same way that she always had, although this was more a walk with an old friend than the grand stands against it that she had taken in the past. However, her friend was waiting, counting down the seconds until her children would come in their cars to take her and her things away from her old life. She wanted to remember every detail. If only she had the energy to take it all in a little bit more.

It was in these slow, measured, careful scans of the room, achingly full of memory, that her eyes lit on the box. It was one that she hadn’t seen in years (a number that could better be described in decades, quite honestly), with a thick, simple top and solid hinges that kept it closed. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but she would know it anywhere. Her younger hands could have found those clasps slowly peeling from the wood in their sleep back in her prime. She pulled it into her lap from its hiding spot on a nearby shelf (tucked behind some old photo albums, nearly pushed out of sight), relishing the solid weight of it, remembering all of the times that she had completed this same action in the past. The clasps were more difficult now. Her joints reminded her of this, protesting the small, delicate movements with sharp jolts of pain that arced up the backs of her hands. The treasures inside would be worth that, however. 

Pulling back the lid, she saw it, written all over the old, yellowed paper, long protected by that simple box. His handwriting. Long since gone, George had been her high school sweetheart, the man who’d stayed with her as she went to college (helped her fight with her family that she should even go), they’d begun a family, and then he got sick. Those days were bitter. Those were the ones in which she wasn’t sure that they would make it, any of them. There were just so many bills. So many things to do and not enough people to do them. There was not enough time in the day. George had sent her letters in high school when they were young, dumb, and had nothing to worry about and again when they were separated by distance while she was getting her education. When she couldn’t see up from down, that was when the letters started again. Then, when they were at their lowest. His hand was more mature, shakier because of the illness, but it was still his. It was her light through those dark times, the push to continue on. When he wasn’t there to send them anymore, they were the reminder that he was still close. It wasn’t even that they contained anything inspiring, just pure nonsense, letting her know that he was there, that he was present, that he cared. Then they began to hurt too badly and she put the box away. 

She thought that they were gone forever. Yet here they were. Again, at her lowest, he always found his way back to her, his brash, childish penmanship melting into a more adult version, always reminding her of the good things in life, the reasons to keep fighting. He didn’t need to write to her anymore. He had already said everything that he needed to say. And it did feel like he was saying it all to her again, consoling her, telling her it would be all right. She knew, deep down, that soon she would be joining him. It had been too long already. That little room couldn’t hold her forever. 

The metallic caw of the doorbell announced the arrival of her son, on his way up. He knew the door was unlocked; he just rang the bell to be polite. She no longer needed to worry about the house, the boxes, how everything would fit- she had George. He had found her again.

“What have you got there?” her son asked gently. He seemed to feel the need to treat her like she was a child again, but this time, she minded less. She used to get mad, snap at him, but she could have sworn, just for a second, that the hand he had placed on her shoulder felt like George’s hand, older, more competent, reassuring. 

“Something from the past,” she said. “Now, are we ready to go?”