Letters from the Past: The Power of Written Words

​In the early 1990s, I was working in Mexico City on a water conservation project that found me
away from my family for several weeks duration over a period of eighteen months. On one
occasion it was more than a month since I had been home. My constantly supportive wife,
Regina, managed the raising of our three adolescent children all by herself. We had wonderful
children, but all three could be a handful and I know how discouraged Regina became at times.
In those days, we didn’t have cellphones. Phoning long distance for complex and lengthy
conversations was very costly, so I did something I hadn’t done since forever...I sat down and
wrote a personal letter to my darling Regina. I told her how dear she was to me and how
dependent I had become on her steadfast support, her caring and providing for the kids by
herself; how very proud I was to have her in my life.

Writing my letter to her, by hand, was truly a cathartic moment in my life. My thoughts didn’t
flow as easily as a conversation. It was one-sided and was much more pensive and deliberate in
content, much like this blog I’m writing now. The circumstances rallied my emotions and
directed my words in more meaningful ways I still have difficulty describing.
I not only encouraged her to stay the course, I emphasized and reminded her of the depths of
her inner strength. Despite being the most formidable woman I had ever met, she too had
moments of doubt, loss of self-confidence, fear of the uncertainty of tomorrow. These were
financially difficult times for us. I just sent the money home and she looked after everything
keeping our creditors at bay.

Years later she told me the positive impact she felt after reading the words I crafted from my
heart. She broke down just telling me about her feelings, and despite our loving children, how
lonely she felt...abandoned. She also laughed when she read all the things I deeply wanted to
do with her as soon as I returned, anything she could dream of was my promise and intent. I
even embarrassed her by describing the intimate details, the first time I ever wrote such things
in my life.

There is a scene on the second page of Chapter 23 in From Promise To Peril when Anna wrote a
heartfelt letter to her young daughter living in America on a music scholarship, to inform her of
the passing of her grandfather Sigmund, and her grandmother, Marissa. In that scene I wrote
about Anna’s experience writing that difficult letter.
               
​                   “The premeditated decision to place pen to paper is an exercise involving an intense
degree of reflection. Absorbing and modifying the thought process is not so naturally spontaneous
as conversation. It is a process that can be likened to an internal conversation with oneself.
The crafting of Anna’s letter was a cathartic experience and was painful as well as therapeutic
causing her to search deeper within herself to feel the true depth and magnitude of her own loss.”

I wrote this scene based upon my actual experience when I wrote my letter to Regina. I could
feel Anna’s pain and the sometimes grueling challenge to convey her message so lovingly.
I had not seen my letter to Regina again, until about a year after her death when I was
searching for something quite unrelated to the letter. It was saved by Regina twenty-seven
years ago along with her mother and fathers’ original birth and marriage certificates. These
were the documents I used to tell Julia’s and Jan’s story in the second book Tracks Of Our Tears.
I was so moved emotionally that I wept like a child when I reread my letter after so many years,
knowing that Regina must have been equally moved by reading it. How many chances do we
have in life, and love, to write the words “I love you” to the love of our life. Written words will
outlast our lifetimes to speak for us to new generations who follow.

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