Letters and Pictures
I met Debbie at my mother’s house after work lastnight. It had been a long day forno particular reason but we don’t have much time before Debbie leaves so wethought another walkthrough would be good.
I walked in and found Debbie in tears. One of the last times Debbie had beenthere my mother had been talking about some letters from my father that shecouldn’t find. In the last fewAlzheimer’s blurred years of his life my father became obsessed with sortingthings. So the boxes of familyphotos that weren’t organized mind you---but at least in one place? All over the house, mixed together withbills and junk mail and instructions for long gone power tools. My mother longed to find the loveletters my father wrote to her before they were married and was so sad shecouldn’t find them.
Yesterday, Debbie found them. And cried, thinking if only she had found them before Mom died.
I won't share them here except to tell you that he signed one them, "drunk with your love, Joe."
Debbie sorted through my father’s books and picked out whatshe wanted. We’ll probably go overagain this evening but even the short time we spent there really wore us out. We also found some pictures of theirwedding we’d never seen before, as well as some pictures of other soldiers onmy father’s WWII LST. So we hadhappy tears as well as sad ones.
We’ve divvied everything up pretty easily. Now and then there’s something that werealize we both have an attachment too but it’s been easy for one of us to say‘no, you should have that….'
There's a wedding photo of my parents in front of the church---just the two of them---that my mother has framed...but Debbie and I found these. They're not in wonderful shape but show my parents with their parents as well as some friends. In the picture with their friends you can see my mother holding the bride and groom from the top of her cake. When Ernie and I got married we used the same one on top of our pumpkin cake.