A Man Of Letters

I have always enjoyed a good, old fashioned hand written letter. I remember when I was growing up my Grandmother used to write my Aunt Minnie at least once a week and my Aunt Minnie only lived 25 miles away. My Grandmother used to give me enough money to go to the store on the corner to buy her some stamps and me a comic book. I recently came into possession of several of those letters and it makes me feel close to a woman who always managed to dote on me no matter what the circumstance.

Some of the women I have dated and I have tried letter writing "campaigns" before but they usually waned after a short period of time. I have kept all of those letters I received from them in a place where no one can touch them. I read through them once in a while because the letters still mean something to me.

I was rummaging through some of my stuff when I was cleaning out my storage unit the other day and I came upon a box full of my papers. I picked through a few of them and I found one that caught my attention. It was an e-mail I had printed off dated July 20, 2008. This woman and I had developed a harmless flirtation but it wasn't going to go anywhere because she was married. She was not happily married and that is why she was putting herself out there.

"I'll tell you why you fascinate me. Because you are really cute, smart and not like a dork smart, you are super funny, seem so down to earth, I think you do like strip clubs but probably not as much as you make out, and on the outside you seem like a hard manly man, but I bet you are like a teddy bear. Not a lot of men keep journals much less tell a chick they do."

The woman was born with a heart defect and was not supposed to live past the age of 15 or have kids (she had two) but unfortunately she was living on borrowed time. I moved away and we stayed in touch and the last time I heard from her a couple of years ago, she had been put on a heart transplant list. I found out not like ago that her time had ran out and she passed away. I will always cherish this "letter" from her.