1 – Notes

Dad,

Since you passed away, I’ve been reading and rereading all of your old notes and letters. I’ve found myself wanting to write back to you, as I used to, even though you’re gone.

When I was a child, you were always writing something. You wrote stories about life with six kids and sent them to magazines like Good Housekeeping. (But sadly, they were never published.) You wrote sermons that you delivered when the minister was on vacation and laypeople ran the Sunday morning services. You wrote doggerel and read it at goodbye parties when someone at work retired. I admired your writing and daydreamed about becoming a writer myself when I grew up.

You also wrote little notes to us kids on our birthdays or when we were upset about something. I wonder if you remember them. And I wonder if you’re surprised to hear that I kept every single one, along with all of the letters you wrote me after I left home.

One year on my birthday, when I was sulking because I didn’t think you were paying enough attention to me, you wrote me this note: 

You might not think I care
When the Celtics are on the air
But I love you most of all
Even more than basketball.
Love, Daddy

On another birthday, when I was working hard on making a diorama inside a shoe box for a school project, you wrote me a note on a piece of my math paper. It was all folded up into a small square. As I opened each fold, words and little drawings were revealed:

Happy (smiling face)
Birthday (cake with candles)
To You My (smiling stick figure)
Love! You are Like a Little (heart with arrow through it)
Dove (bird)
What’s in the House? (house)

I loved this note and I opened and closed it so many times that the paper became incredibly soft and the folds became torn in places. 

Your writing was funny and clever. (But your spelling was terrible.)  The one year you were able to afford the cost of sending me to Girl Scout camp for a couple of weeks, you sent me a letter written in a code that I had to decipher. On my thirteenth birthday, you wrote me a silly poem on a piece of orange construction paper, teasing me about becoming a teenager.

Whenever I reread these old notes, I feel again the love we had for each other when I was young. None of the troubles had started yet. I wish that love had been strong enough to keep us close when the dark days came.

Karen