Love Letters Are Heirlooms

The most valuable thing we inherited wasn’t jewelry.

Last week my sister and I started the big clean out.

The one we’ve avoided every time our mom said, “Someday when I die, make sure you look for this coin… or that necklace.”

Like our father twenty-six years earlier, she left us far too soon, with a house full of memories, treasures, and my favorite thing: letters.

Huge, white, kitchen-sized trash bags full of cards, Post-it notes, typed letters, and handwritten stationery will need to be sifted through. I took a quick peek, because my curiosity got the best of me.

Some letters were printed emails. Others were crafted on our new Macintosh computer. And so many were handwritten, on any scrap of paper the writer could find.

My sister and I favored construction paper.
My mom loved Post-its.
My dad used legal pads.

But regardless of the method, every message was the same:

I love you.

We’ll split up the jewelry and the keepsakes including the china, the crystal, the pieces passed down generation by generation.

But the letters?

What becomes of those?

Do we make a photo album? Arrange them in boxes? Put them away for someone else to find in our homes one day?

How do we honor the words of parents who are no longer here?

They might be gone, but their love is still palpable. You can hear it when the words are read out loud. You can see it in the handwriting. You can feel it in the weight of the cardstock. And you can smell the faint whiff of my mom’s perfume that still lingers on her belongings.

The sadness of combing through our mom’s possessions, someone who died before she was ready, was replaced by awe for the life she lived while she was here.

Here’s one example of a letter I found, written to my dad in the 1980s while he was looking for a new job:

“This time that you have been looking for another position with your office based at home has been splendid. The girls could see you even in the daylight hours and shared their dinner time with you at a reasonable hour. It has been a blessing to learn how much we all like each other as well as love. The support is always here as well as our admiration of you, the revered man in our lives.”

Reading it made me wonder how I communicate with the people I love.

I know I speak words of affirmation. I send the quick “I love you” text.

But this?

This feels like love on an elevated level. That’s the power of writing. The words, sentiment and love stays when everything else feels lost.

So if you’ve ever wondered if your written words matter…
If you’re qualified to write them…
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Who am I to write?”

I’m here to tell you:

Your words matter and you don’t have to be a “writer” to write words that resonate with the right reader.

These letters are as precious to me as the heirlooms I’m packing. They are invaluable, no appraisal could ever state their worth.

And my guess is someone will feel the same way about your writing, too.

Maybe it’s a stranger sitting in the situation you used to be in before you found a way out. Or perhaps it’s someone in your field who wants to learn what you’ve learned. It could simply be a younger version of you, looking for the next right step.

Because one day, long after we’re gone, our words will still be here.