Letters Home: Section 1, Letter dated July 22, 1999

July 22, 1999
Katrina,

It seems like ages since I’ve seen you, Sister; since we’ve sat on Mama’s porch swing talking, drinking sweet tea, and trying to count all the stars in a midnight sky as bare feet dangle above the cool night Earth. I miss you. Sisters shouldn’t spend much time apart. It’s not natural. When we’re apart, it feels as though a part of me is missing inside, empty. Though I write to you regularly, it is not the same as being in the same room, sitting across a table from one another while we share stores or whisper gossip after the house has quieted down. Oh, the memories I have of our youth!


Lately, now that we’re no longer in our younger years, I’ve been wondering what shall become of our lives when we’re both gone. Will we be remembered? Will there be anyone who tells the stories of our lives, anyone to pass along old recipes or family history? Though I have hardly lived a life to be described as worldly, I’ve learned a thing or two over the years. Will there be anyone learning from my mistakes when my life is through?


Your situation is quite different from mine and writing is not so much an option for you, but I think I’ve devised a way to leave some mark on this world, to leave a legacy of some sort. I’ll explain it Tuesday when I visit. I’ll bring your favorite flowers.

Sisters forever,
Christina

P.S. I still write these letters positioned behind Father’s old oak desk, next to the window letting in the warm morning sun and framing the field of clover leading down to the lake. Like the love between sisters, this old house and this old desk are strong and enduring, experiencing the graceful flow of age and being witness to the trials and triumphs of life. Some say that before you can write you have to live a life worth writing about. Others say that residing only one day on this Earth is enough to fill volumes. Although this desk and this house are not human, they seem to breathe in what’s around them and have experienced lives of their own. Like shadows on the wall, they have heard and seen the human lives nearby weave days into years, flowing through changes like water around a bend. If these walls, this desk could speak, I wonder what they would say?

C.

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