Letters are often mementos or keepsakes to remind us of loved ones who have passed away. We treasure these letters when our loved one is no longer with us.
Finding a Box of Family Letters By Dana Gioia
The dead say little in their letters they haven’t said before. We fi nd no secrets, and yet how different every sentence sounds heard across the years.
My father breaks my heart simply by being so young and handsome. He’s half my age, with jet-black hair. Look at him in his navy uniform grinning beside his dive-bomber.
Come back, Dad! I want to shout. He says he misses all of us (though I haven’t yet been born). He writes from places I never knew he saw, and everyone he mentions now is dead.
There is a large, long photograph curled like a diploma—a banquet sixty years ago. My parents sit uncomfortably among tables of dark-suited strangers. The mildewed paper reeks of regret.
I wonder what song the band was playing, just out of frame, as the photographer arranged your smiles. A waltz? A foxtrot? Get out there on the fl oor and dance! You don’t have forever.
What does it cost to send a postcard to the underworld? I’ll buy a penny stamp from World War II and mail it downtown at the old post offi ce just as the courthouse clock strikes twelve.
