In 2007, I had just celebrated my marriage to a man you didn’t even know I had met. We had a party at my mom’s farm house for family and close friends who hadn’t been able to make it to our wedding in a small chapel in the countryside of England. I thought of you that week. Not because I had wanted to invite you, but because I would have liked to tell you [...]]]> I received a call about you today. My mom said that you weren’t alive anymore. She had looked for you in the depths of the interwebs after losing touch years ago. And there you were. W. L. S. Born: _____Died: August 3, 2007 in  _________ Arizona. You were _____ years old.

In 2007, I had just celebrated my marriage to a man you didn’t even know I had met. We had a party at my mom’s farm house for family and close friends who hadn’t been able to make it to our wedding in a small chapel in the countryside of England. I thought of you that week. Not because I had wanted to invite you, but because I would have liked to tell you about my life then. My new husband. Our home in London. My new teaching job. I wanted you to know the woman I had become. Twelve years after we had ‘first’ met when I drove out West to meet you for the ‘first’ time in my memory.

Because you are no longer on this earth, my memory of you will always be still. It will always reside in the photo of us outside your trailer in the Arizona desert where I first saw a storm come in over the mountains. Dark billowing clouds rolling in, bringing heavy rain to the dry red land. Lightning from a storm miles away on a clear path towards us. Air thick with moisture from the heavens about to pour down, creating deep welts in the earth.

By the time the rain arrived, we were cozy inside. I was going through a book your daughter, my Aunt Sandy, had made me over the years. The years I did not know who you were. I wanted to fill my mind and heart with stories from the years we had missed with one another and you wanted the same. I told you about the pink dress I had received in the mail on my sixth birthday. The one with the white collar and big white flowers. I thought it was from the mail lady because I didn’t know about you then. Any memory I had, had been integrated into my subconscious as a dream. In my new life I was not to know about you so instead I loved the mail lady.

You sat next to me in your wheelchair, your left leg ending at your knee. My mom had told me the story. But I wanted to hear it from you. You explained the excruciating pain you felt when the oven had exploded while you were baking a cherry pie, causing you to lose your leg. How your twin sister, halfway across the country, had felt that same pain in that same moment in her same leg. I wondered if I would ever have twin daughters that would experience a connection like this.

Before we met I had a photo of you and your husband, my grandfather. You were young. Newly married. Dressed for a party. Long legs, both of them. I imagined your bright red lips and rouged cheeks in the black and white photo. Your eyes sparkled with happiness. I imagined the romantic life you had lived as a young woman.

I was fifteen when we first spoke on the phone. Your voice sounded far away in an accent I didn’t recognize. I wondered how Arizona differed from Michigan, the only home I remembered.  As we talked you felt less further away; I relaxed and we started to share stories. After our first conversation we started to exchange letters and I planned a trip that I never really imagined I would take.

After that you sent three porcelain china dolls for my collection. A collection my mother had started when I was just a girl but now feel is extravagant. But I hold onto them, boxed up in her basement until the day I have my own daughter to pass them down to. All except one. A  baby girl dressed in a blue frock. She arrived with a broken arm. I had always planned to visit the doll hospital, but never did. One year, not so long ago, we drove her to the Salvation Army for another little girl to have for Christmas and to take to the doll hospital herself. Even though I wasn’t attached to this thing, it was like letting you go a little bit. We had shared so few memories that this doll had created one of them. And now she was gone.
A friend died my hair dark tulip the night before I would drive across the country with a boy from school I hardly knew. He had a crush on me and I just wanted to get to the place of my birth and survive meeting my biological father, his sister, and you. We embraced and you didn’t even mention my hair. Not once. You accepted me for who I was.

I’ve searched all of my notebooks and journals and I can’t find one which tells the story of that trip. It’s difficult for me to believe that having kept a diary since the third grade, I would let such a momentous time in my life go undocumented. It comes to me in bits and I want to get them all down, more so now that I no longer have the option of discussing them with you.

My mom showed me a list of ailments you had written down for her before she took us back to Michgian. In case. For the future. Helping me be prepared for the health issues that run through my genes. Thank you for thinking ahead.

I lost both of my grandma’s last year. My mom’s mother, and her mother. I was too far away to mourn them with family. Now I have just discovered that I lost you years ago. There is no one who can mourn you with me. No stories or memories shared. I can pay $2.95 to read your full obituary online. And I want to. I want to see the list of relatives you are survived by. Partially, I want to see if I am on that list. But mostly? I just want to make sure it is you.

I will always treasure the memories we were able to create that week during the summer of 1995. But now, I will have to put away the hope that there will be more.

Love,

Kara Melissa

I am sorry.

I remember the journey to the small mall in Scarborough.  I was with both my mom and dad and my older brother.  I don’t think that mall is there anymore.  You were my first real pet.  My own.  We looked at hamsters and guinea pigs, but for some reason, it was you, the gerbil I was drawn to.  I think it was your tail that did it for me.  There was something more elegant, more graceful about the tail of the gerbil than the stubbiness of a hamster tail.  It seemed dignified and  graceful.  We picked you out and brought you home.  Your home was in my room, in an old aquarium where fish [...]]]> I was only 8, and I killed you.

I am sorry.

I remember the journey to the small mall in Scarborough.  I was with both my mom and dad and my older brother.  I don’t think that mall is there anymore.  You were my first real pet.  My own.  We looked at hamsters and guinea pigs, but for some reason, it was you, the gerbil I was drawn to.  I think it was your tail that did it for me.  There was something more elegant, more graceful about the tail of the gerbil than the stubbiness of a hamster tail.  It seemed dignified and  graceful.  We picked you out and brought you home.  Your home was in my room, in an old aquarium where fish once swam.  A gerbil, you,  were so much cooler than the fish.  Sure, watching the colourful little things swim around was fun…for a little while.  But what can an 8 year old do with a fish rather than feed them and watch them swim in endless circles.  The novelty soon wore off.  You were a grown up pet.

I may not have always treated you as well as I could have.  I did love you though.  At times I didn’t change your water quite often enough.  Maybe I didn’t clean your cage as much as I should have.  But I did love you.  I’d lie in bed at night and be reassured by the small scratching sounds I could hear coming from beside the closest where you lived.  The woodchips in which you slept gave my room a sweet smell.  A smell of the out of doors.  I’d even hold you.  Your small nails tickling my hands and my arms.  You were the first thing to teach me responsibility, to teach me how to care for another.  You also taught me that sometimes terrible mistakes happen, mistakes that can have amazingly huge consequences.

Eventually my mom and dad let me let you out of your cage.  Since you were so adept at squeezing into small spaces, flattening your body in such a way it was questionable where your insides went we had to make sure you couldn’t get out of my room.  So instead of simply closing my door, we put a piece of plywood in front of the open door.  We thought you would be safe.  You’d run around, having a great time.  I’d watch you closely, making sure you didn’t disappear into some recessed area in my room, or squish yourself between the books in my bookshelf.  But, one day you got out.  Somehow you found a crack around my door, and snuck in the hallway.  I remember my dad on the phone to my uncle.  They were both teachers.  It was Labour Day.  First day of third grade was the next day.  I panicked slightly when you snuck out, but I also found it humourous watching you scurry around the hallway.  You were free, and you knew it.  I stepped over the plywood, and scurried after you, desperately trying to scoop you up.  It was almost a game.  But then, you went so fast.  I lifted my foot to take another step, and as it lowered to the ground, you ran under it.  I still remember the awful mix of the softness of your fur, the flexibility of your body and feeling the hardness of your bones.  You turned over on your back, convulsing.  I remember screaming for my dad to get off the phone.  He didn’t know what had happened.  He quickly got a towel and picked you up gently Jasper.  He took you, a wee creature to the emergency vet, on Labour Day.  Most parents would not have gone that far.  Most would have found another way to put you out of your misery.  My dad treated with the compassion you deserved.  He ensured you were put down in a humane and respectful way.

Starting grade three the next day, I was a little less child than I had been at the beginning of the previous day.  Bad things happen.  We sometimes make mistakes that can have big consequences.  You taught me to grieve, to understand the fragility and sacredness of life.  And for that I thank you.  And I truly am sorry.

Love,

me

In that moment, I felt the cold shock of icy blood run through my forehead, [...]]]> It’s caught in my memory, the exact moment I realized we were over. The exact moment I understood that there would be no salvation, no righting of a terrible wrong, no admission of a dreadful mistake. I feel like it was yesterday, that exact moment I realized I was being cut off from you as though I was a ruined, infected limb left unattended to on its tree long enough to spread harm and disease. But I was not, am not, diseased, harmful. I was a perfectly functional limb suddenly being severed and left to fall.  But this truth did not matter, still does not matter, and never will matter.

In that moment, I felt the cold shock of icy blood run through my forehead, numbing it. I felt the heaviness of unshed tears ballooning in my throat, the same throat that fused shut as though to keep a dam of feelings and words at bay. I felt the freezing, wet dripping of sweat trickle down my spine. One part of my brain knew it was over even as a larger, loud part protested – without words. And, how odd, I think now, I felt the heavy, pressing ache in my chest akin to the one that manifests while watching a loved one suck in her painful last breaths with the utmost difficulty. I remember that moment because I had no choice in it. There never seems to be any choice in those, the worst moments. This time was different though, it was even more unnecessary, if that was even possible. Apparently it was all because of me – my actions, my words. At least on the surface. That was what I was supposed to agree to but the edges of that alleged truth were foggy and hard to define. The repercussions vast and unclear. And all I knew to do was sit there and watch, to accept, like those other deaths. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I must have learned that to maintain ones dignity in times of unspeakable horror is the measure of a woman. That to sit and accept whatever is doled out by those with authority is proper. But it was wrong. So wrong to take you from me. That was the real horror, do you know that? Do you know that above all that is nearly unbearable now, your absence in my life and mine in yours – that is the tragedy in this chapter?

I remember you so clearly. Nearly every day I think of you, even as I try to stamp out those thoughts.  I loved you even when I hated you. And sometimes I did walk that precarious line between love and hate; I suspect we all do when it matters. Mostly, however, I gave myself to you without regret.  It seems as though I spent a lifetime of energy on you and devoted myself to you, often at considerable expense to myself. Still, that was my choice, and did not seem wrong. It was what I did, and did well, I say, for the very little that is worth. Then, like any good heist, suddenly you were taken from me, ripped away from me without warning. Apparently I was bad for you – but far worse – for those you represented and protected. They said. But this is not about them, or their blatant lies and twisted truths. Perhaps somewhere, someday, karma will intervene, but that is of no consequence to me. This is not even about me – the part I played, my abject humiliation, nor my surrounding feelings. This is about you and our end. And how I feel, directly, about that.

It has been nearly a year and I know that we are over, you and I. I also know that I must accept that, under or around the disgrace, the lies, the regret, and my need for vindication. I shall never have that, any more than I shall ever have you again.  And yet, I have refused to admit, even to myself that I loved you; that you meant far more to me than security and habit. Until now. And, although I have written these words today, please understand that I do not wish to speak, think, or feel them again. I want to bury my love for you in a box, under miles of sand and the heaviest of rock; and then again under tons of mortar and grout. You see, to admit my love for you makes your loss even greater, and so much harder to bear. It is similar to so many things; it is easier to pretend you did not matter to me. Easier to let their assumptions lie unchallenged. That way they did not take nearly the rest of everything away from me. Not if you didn’t matter.

I dream about you now. Sometimes they are just dreams and all is as it should be again, until I wake up and remember. Most often, however, they are nightmares that leave me shaken, unsettled, and empty. And I awake realizing I want to cry an ocean of tears for your loss even after all this time. Funny that: I want to erase your very existence, deny and reject you; and I want to cry for you in the same moment. My life without you seems pathetic and odd. I wasn’t ready. I am never ready. Perhaps so many years are too many to get over. So now I just wait for the pain to end. And I know the root of that pain was not contained in those pages. It is your absence, your removal, my ban from you. And so I punish myself; that is my choice now. I am not brave enough to start over again, to open myself again. I won’t, if only because I cannot take any more of those moments. You see, I remember the exact moment I realized we were over.

So farewell my friend.  For certain you will never know all that you meant to me.

~ Anonymous

This is a garden for letters.

Slip your shoes off. Take a stroll. Smell the rhododendrons.

These letters were all written by participants in the Love Letters Aren’t Just For Lovers e-class. At the end of the class, everyone is invited, if they wish, to plant a letter in this garden.

So, breathe in deeply. Gather up some inspiration. Most importantly— leave your footprints. There’s space below each letter to leave a little note for the writer, letting them know that you appreciate their words. It’s courageous to share stories like these. If you feel some magic, let the writer know.

These are each up for three months, so do come visit again.

Joyfully spreading seeds,

e

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space [...]]]> Why, hello!

This is a garden for letters.

Slip your shoes off. Take a stroll. Smell the rhododendrons.

These letters were all written by participants in the Love Letters Aren’t Just For Lovers e-class. At the end of the class, everyone is invited, if they wish, to plant a letter in this garden.

So, breathe in deeply. Gather up some inspiration. Most importantly— leave your footprints. There’s space below each letter to leave a little note for the writer, letting them know that you appreciate their words. It’s courageous to share stories like these. If you feel some magic, let the writer know.

These are each up for three months, so do come visit again.

Joyfully spreading seeds,

e

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P. S. Questions or comments? Drop me a line.

Welcome to the home of the Love Letters Aren’t Just For Lovers Gallery. This is where you’ll find the ten winners of the love letter contest, the jury’s comments, a place to leave your own two cents. Don’t be shy!

First though, if you’d like to go strait to info on the Love Letter e-class, click here.

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And now, if you will, a little history…

It was late at night, Georgian Bay,  and the last beautiful weekend of the summer. A group of friends and I sat around a campfire, talking about the big letters of our lives — the ones from lovers and grandparents and best friends, the ones we’d written but never mailed, the ones we kept folded up in our [...]]]>

Welcome to the home of the Love Letters Aren’t Just For Lovers Gallery. This is where you’ll find the ten winners of the love letter contest, the jury’s comments, a place to leave your own two cents. Don’t be shy!

First though, if you’d like to go strait to info on the Love Letter e-class, click here.

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And now, if you will, a little history…

It was late at night, Georgian Bay,  and the last beautiful weekend of the summer. A group of friends and I sat around a campfire, talking about the big letters of our lives — the ones from lovers and grandparents and best friends, the ones we’d written but never mailed, the ones we kept folded up in our wallets for years.

All of a sudden, I realized — this is everything I care about. For years I’d been working on helping people recognize the power of their written voices. These letters, it seemed, held that power undiluted.

I was up all night, and over pancakes in the morning we brainstormed ways to coax more love letters into the world; not just romantic ones (though that’s part of it) but simple, beautiful pages of words about all the strange shapes love can make. I decided to try running a love letter contest, and to offer a few free workshops to help people get started. I had no idea if anyone would respond.

The autumn filled with love. The letters rolled in and the workshops filled to over-capacity. Prizes were donated, articles were written and the contest spread across the globe. I was overwhelmed by the passionate and heart-felt response.

After many evenings spent of sighing and wiping tears off my keyboard, I decided I couldn’t do this alone, so I appointed a jury from seven of my most committed students. They took up the task, committed, passionate and full of heart. One snowy evening in December, we got together in my living room for red wine, laughter and some tough decisions.

It wasn’t easy to let any of the letters go, but there were three that everyone agreed touched us in a way that was completely unique. These are the “Jury Favorites”, directly below. However, we couldn’t stop there. Below those are seven more letters, one chosen by each jury member, that caught their attention in a special way.

So, have a read. Fall in love. Drop a comment about the ones that move you most. More than anything, take inspiration from these brave writers. Somewhere close by, there’s paper just waiting to hold the words your heart wants to tell.

Inspired to write your own? I have taken everything I learned in the fall, and distilled it into a 7-week self-guided e-class on love letter writing. Participants will receive gentle guidance, inspiration and structure to create at least seven brand-new love letters. Click here to learn more, and to sign up.

Ever so warmly,

* *

*

I remember the exact moment that you became real for me.  We were slumped in the living room watching that cheesy Hugh Grant film, “About A Boy”.  I moved in my half of the loveseat, uncomfortable after an hour of poor TV posture.  Actually, I just turned, just a little to the side. Then, the strangest thing happened, my belly came after.  All of a sudden, we were two people.  There was me…and there was you.

You, growing inside of me but still whole, still an individual soaring down your own path at your own will of your own volition.  It was momentous…for me, at least.  Perhaps not so much for you.  But then, sometimes that’s the way with love.

You see, after [...]]]> Autumn 2010

I remember the exact moment that you became real for me.  We were slumped in the living room watching that cheesy Hugh Grant film, “About A Boy”.  I moved in my half of the loveseat, uncomfortable after an hour of poor TV posture.  Actually, I just turned, just a little to the side. Then, the strangest thing happened, my belly came after.  All of a sudden, we were two people.  There was me…and there was you.

You, growing inside of me but still whole, still an individual soaring down your own path at your own will of your own volition.  It was momentous…for me, at least.  Perhaps not so much for you.  But then, sometimes that’s the way with love.

You see, after weeks of vague symptoms that could have been a stomach bug, or a couple of extra peanut butter cups, or jeans that had shrunk in the wash, after weeks…right there…was you.  Even Michael, your father, noticed.  He leaned over placing his face up against my growing midsection and cooed into me – into you.

“Doo doo doo doo, hello in there.”

Lovely, welcome human being.  Small and delicate boy or girl.  Ours.

Months after the little plus sign told us of your existence, it was as if you had been biding your time, or maybe we were just too busy to notice, or maybe it was the parental theme of the movie that prompted us to look – bless you, Hugh Grant.  Either way, I remember the moment so clearly.  Hello in there.

I remember it just as I remember the look on the ultrasound technician’s face a few weeks later – blank and professional.  She wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t talk to me.  There’s a problem.  And it wasn’t that I was lying, cold and naked and alone, on a thin sheet of crumpled paper while your father paced the plastic coated waiting room.  It was just a routine checkup.  It should have been fine.  But her face told me it wasn’t fine.  All the while that no one would speak to me, her face told me the truth.

Hours later, Michael and I were walking around downtown, too upset to go home, too afraid to do anything but walk, calling the midwifery clinic every hour to see if our midwife was able to talk with us, to tell us what was happening.  But we knew.  We knew you had left us for good.

That night, we got the phone call – the call that no parent ever wants to receive.  It shouldn’t happen this way.

“I’m afraid I have bad news.  There is no heartbeat.”

And you, still there and yet not.  Still inside me, but no longer growing.  Alive, but only in our hearts.

Discharged from care, alone in a way that so few can understand, I couldn’t help but feel the weight of guilt come crushing down on me.  How can one deny those feelings?  Bad mother.  Unsuitable.  Infertile.  Not fit.

After many hours in the emergency room, many more crying hard with my head pressed against the floor, I have come to understand the great truth.  There is no fault in situations like this.  Baby, it’s not your fault.  And it’s not mine.

But I’m sorry.  Even still, I am so sorry.

We didn’t choose a name.  Long ago, we had decided it would be best not to.  We didn’t realize at the time that decision would help us let go of you – help us move on.

There is no way to prepare for this kind of emotional rollercoaster.  There is no way to know how or when things will be fine, when they will be okay again.  Right now, all I know is that you will always be my Baby Number One, that I am so truly sorry, and that I love you…regardless.

With all my heart, little one,

Mom

I felt incredibly daunted at the task of commenting on this beautiful letter, and it was only after sitting on it for a few days that I was able to articulate why.  It is hard to add any exterior words to what is such a perfect, complete breath of love between two intensely connected spirits.  Telling it through these two moments was incredibly powerful.   Hope and loss, linked in love as they are so often linked in life.  This piece made me cry.  Thank you for sharing it.
~ Tamara Cooper

I found this letter incredibly tender and moving. It wasn’t until the end that I felt the deep loss that the writer experienced. The writing was beautiful and so hopeful. There were lines that I read over and over. “My belly came after.” “All of a sudden, we were two people.” “And you still there, and yet not.” “Alive, but only in our hearts.”
~ Dorothy Rusoff

In the opening paragraph, the attention to detail made the letter very real.  The writer wasn’t watching a movie, but “a cheesy Hugh Grant film”.  She placed me right there with her on the couch.  The detail continues into the second paragraph, when she describes the baby growing inside her, not just growing but, “Soaring down your own path at your own will of your own volition.” This makes the child so very real.  This is followed by the strong, short sentences full of love and hope… “Lovely, welcome human being. Small and delicate boy or girl. Ours.” The abrupt shift to the scene with the ultrasound technician caught me off guard and immediately shifted the entire message from one of immense love to immense, immeasurable loss. “And you, still there and yet not.” What a poignant and tender way to describe loss. I see the last several paragraphs as a replication of the stages of loss, denial, guilt/anger and acceptance. It all creates a sense of unconditional, never-ending love for the lost child. Extremely courageous writing! This letter touched me to my core.
~ Lorraine Lederer

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Helen Tremethick is a writer, a photographer, and a gardener; all of which she’d do professionally if the opportunity presented itself. Currently, she lives in the old City of York where she can be found amidst strewn papers and hearty vegetables. You can read updates about her garden, and her life, at zeromilediet.net.

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