The floor is covered with envelopes as if the mail carrier had accidently dropped off the entire neighbourhood’s letters into our living room. Uh-oh, how are we going to do this? I wonder.
The reason
for the paper debris on the hard wooden floor is a sad one. Gea, whom I wrote
about in my seventh blog post, passed away on Christmas eve. Her family asked
me to speak at the memorial service.
Apart from being devastated by her sudden death, I felt humbled by her family’s wish. It gave me something to do and having something to do helped me cope with my grief. I had an opportunity to tell a story, unique to Gea and me.
In the Netherlands, the deceased must be buried or cremated within 6 working days, so there wasn’t much time. I wanted my tribute to Gea to be delicate, personal, and memorable. I didn’t exactly know how to start but I vaguely knew I had letters from her somewhere in a cardboard box in the garage.
*
The massive cardboard box was too heavy to carry, but I managed to drag it into the house. Opening the box revealed classic blue airmail envelopes with red and blue stripes mixed up with white envelopes, postcards, fax papers and photos.
The box contained the 400 to 500 letters I’d received from family, friends, and neighbours over the course of my life. Envelopes with either French, Australian, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Aruban, Swiss or Canadian stamps, thin rolls of fax paper and in most cases much to my relief, the names of the senders written on the back flap of the envelopes. It made it easier to sort out and stack them up by sender. It took me two days to create order in the chaos and find the letters I was looking for.
I recognized Gea’s round, pleasant-to-read handwriting. Thirty-three letters, the first one written in 1993, the year our family had moved to Heidelberg, Germany, and the last one sent to Finland in 2004, after which emails took over. I put her letters in chronological order and read them with tears in my eyes. Her words gave me the courage and the inspiration I needed to write my final farewell.
Decluttering
Two months earlier, after learning about my unpredictable future, I’d started decluttering. My family shouldn’t have to clear my belongings after my death. I went through my wardrobe, threw out my high-heeled shoes and gave my jewellery to “the girlfriends” in our family. Also, the Christmas decorations now fit in one box; my husband won’t decorate the house anyways. I felt pleased with myself for clearing up.
After Gea’s memorial service (that we followed via live stream), I realized that I don’t want to burden my family with my correspondence or paperwork either.
My first impulse was to burn the letters or throw everything in the paper recycling container. But after reading some of the letters from my mum, I became nostalgic and hesitant. “I possibly could reconstruct our life day by day with the help of those letters,” I muttered to my husband.
I feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of envelopes, but I recognize the sentimental value of each letter.
Long-Forgotten Memories
“Dear
Jovanka” started my friend Margreet her letter in 1981 after I’d told her I had
had enough of my surname. Soon turning 18, I wanted to become exotic and
sensual.
I must have sounded less ladylike in my letter to Jearine, a friend from camping. “I’m sorry your bike was stolen,” she wrote in 1987. I vividly remember my first brand new, red Dresco bike and how furious I had been when it had disappeared from outside our 14th floor student flat in Groningen. For months I rode a second-hand bike with a very heavy stainless steel chain hanging loosely on my handlebar. If I had come across the culprit, I would have kicked him or her un-exotically with that chain off my bike.
I found letters from Jaques, a pen pal I’d met in Paris in 1979: "je suis contente d'avoir reçu ta lettre qui má fait beaucoup de plaisir," he wrote. My grades for English were intermediate in high school. Did I really write to him in French, I wonder now.
I also wrote letters in other languages. I found faxes written in impeccable German during our Canadian years to neighbours in Heidelberg. Where have those language skills gone?
Neighbours from Groningen and Yde (a small village in the Netherlands) kept me informed about activities in our former neighbourhoods after we’d moved to Germany. Bonnie, a fellow choir member, kept me posted about concerts in Calgary after we’d moved to Finland.
It started to sink in that if we hadn’t moved abroad, I would have never received so many letters. Time difference and expensive long-distance calls made us write. Looking at the highest pile on the floor in the living room, I’m surprised to see that my mum had written so many letters and faxes to us. I had also kept copies of my own faxes, telling my parents about our picnics in Heidelberg, my job insecurity and our financial troubles in Canada and the little milestones of our three boys in Finland.
The letters also tell me something about letter writing customs during those years.
“Sorry, my fountain pen smudges,” wrote my cousin Renske in 1982. Like her, I always wrote with a fountain pen. Red, a silver cap and two ink cartridges. I wish I still had it in my possession.
“I like the stationery,” my highschool friend Elwine, at that time an au pair in Kent, UK, thanked me. It was perfectly normal to send each other floral stationery paper and envelopes on birthdays.
Also, going over the written words of my mother-in-law, I for the first time notice how beautiful her handwriting is.
But there was “progress” too. In 1983, Henriette, another friend, excitedly wrote to me that she finally had a landline phone in her student room in Zwolle. What a luxury! I, on the other hand, had to walk from my student room at 2e Willemstraat to the musty phone booth on Anna Paulowna straat. Though, I seldom called my parents.
Another realization: I did not only receive letters but in return I, too, must have written hundreds of letters to family and friends. At age 60, I suddenly understand why writing comes naturally to me.
*
I’ve meanwhile bundled and tagged all the letters. The reading part will take months as every letter has an emotional impact. I still don’t know what to do with the rediscovered treasures, but nevertheless scribble with a pencil the year the letter was written in in the left corner of each envelope.
On the one hand, it’s just words on paper and we have faster tools to communicate these days. Still, unfortunately the emails Gea and I had written to each other got lost. Also, looking back at our WhatsApp conversations of the past years, I realize now how meaningless direct messaging can be. Notes instead of stories.
Handwritten letters on carefully chosen stationery create a personal touch that I don’t find in my inbox.
“It always
makes me happy to find a letter from you on the doormat,” Gea wrote in 1996.
Looking at the ripped envelopes on the floor, I also recognize the impatient
receiver in me. “Use a letter knife Ata,” my dad used to reprimand me. Thinking
of teenager-Ata and her orderly father with his precious silver letter knife
makes me giggle. I still rip letters open with my thump.
Also, I love how the letters bring back memories of people, activities, and long forgotten places. It feels like an archaeological excavation into my life and makes me sentimental. Just looking at the efforts; finding paper, writing in one’s best handwriting, buying stamps, walking to the mailbox. Some writers had even included recipes, newspaper articles or pictures in their envelopes. Sending letters by snail mail certainly had its own charm.
But my life isn’t endless. So the question remains: what shall I do with all these letters?
