Letters Home: Section 1, Letter dated July 1, 1999

Life is made much easier when we share with each other the lessons we've learned along our journeys. The fictional character of Christina Allgood, ninety-nine years of age, attempts to share the lessons she has learned about life and living as she tells the story of her life through her letters to her twin sister, Katrina.





July 1, 1999
Katrina,


This house is haunted, you know, Sister, by joyful laughter and wonderful memories and hopes and dreams intertwined with moments of confusion and grief. Sometimes, in wishful moments, I think I see Mother, her blond hair highlighted with shades of gold by the sun shining through the window, peering into her china cabinet and admiring her favorite pieces, the designs she chose so carefully, her young porcelain hands gently resting on the cabinet door. But, then, at the moment I find the courage to ask if she’s real, the sun shines a bit more brightly into the room and what was merely an illusion fades into the air, a delicately sweet moment from the past that had returned temporarily to warm this house and to warm this heart. At other times, when in Father’s old office, I begin to smell on the air the faintest scent of cigars, turning to see Father sitting at his old oak desk working on his accounts, his brown hair being gently moved by the invisible hand of a summer breeze. And, after the chime of the clock distracts my attention, I return my eyes to a vacant chair beside a closed window.

Our ghosts are here, too, Katrina, if one shall call them as such, these reflections of the past that hold the power of appearing at will and stirring the emotion of the heart. On days when the house seems quiet but alive, when the air seems to stir the senses and the walls seem to whisper memories, I can see us about, two children, dressed as one, laughing, running through fields of wildflowers on warm summer days or sitting at the table by the window studying our lessons, Mother leaning over your shoulder to ever gently whisper corrections to be made.

Here, at The Oak, this grand old house that Father built for Mother as a wedding present, the past and the present dance together in an undisturbed minuet, shadows of the unseen gliding across the walls with grace as hope and experience learn, one from another, and step into the future. If time has a home, a place where time can mingle and move about as it pleases through the years that have past and the years yet to come, it must surely be here at The Oak, a home built with the love and hope of two hearts and from the mighty oak trees that grow upon this land, their histories and their strength in every beam.

I write these words, dear Sister, as always, sitting at Father’s old oak desk in front of this beautiful window that frames the fields now blanketed in clover leading down to the lake. The window, half as large as the room, with its glass sections divided by oak panes, has been collecting sunbeams in its corners this morning like a child collecting seashells near the ocean, gently placing each treasure in a protective pocket hoping that it will remain forever and share the stories of its travels. Yet, nothing ever stays the same, does it, Katrina? People age and the seasons change, but as I look about this house and at this old desk I know that some things strengthen with time, growing, improving, learning and, yes, others whither away. Father built The Oak to last as long as his love for Mother, and today this old house and the treasures within, like this desk upon which I write, are the very definition of strength, beauty, and perseverance.

As I look about this old room, Father’s old office, I remember the shimmer of the winter firelight against the walls, a joyful but private conversation between the two it would seem, like two young sisters, two friends, at night after the house had grown quiet, sharing their dreams of the future, their thoughts of the day, or their favorite memories. And, it is in moments like this that I feel The Oak shall last forever.

And, I think that the Oak shall live on forever, guided by the strength and knowledge of the mountains that shadow The Oak during the heat of summer days, these mountains that tower over this property like a protective entity. The glorious mountains that have aged since the beginning of time and know of survival will protect The Oak, a monument to love formed from the very trees that the mountain nourished for so many years.


Sisters forever,
Christina


P.S.
Sister,


I do miss you so. The heat coming through the window helps me long for the cooler days of our childhood, winter days filled with hot cocoa and hot cider as we would laugh, falling backwards into the snow, waving our arms, and then standing to see the snow angels we had created. Over and over again, we would create the angels until the field outside the window looked like Heaven, a blanket of white filled with angels that seemed, in the glow of a setting sun, to be able to take flight at will, determined to fly about the world assisting souls in need of hope. And, in the morning, when new snow had erased our angels, we imagined that they had taken flight and were hovering above the Oak like a halo in the sky, a sky we would search for evidence as we spent another day making new angels so that the world always had enough.


C.


This work is fictional. Any resemblance to actual situations or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.