My Mother's Letters

Is it her laughter? Is it her kindness? Is it her gentle voice and demeanor? Maybe it is her tender touch. Perhaps it is the way she smelled after her usual afternoon shower. It might be the letters that she wrote. I think it is everything. I absolutely miss it all. Twelve years later, and I still can’t believe she is gone.

An early morning phone call from a distant place was all it took for her to take flight to that land of promise, o so far away.

Like the early dawn dew that turns to vapor with the morning sun, she flew to her loving Father’s arms. The long battle was finally over. She fought it well and victory was hers as she closed her eyes and breathed her last on this earth.

She left behind those who would never forget her. Hurting hearts and lonely lives hope to someday, see her face once again.

I hold a bundle of letters in my hands, a gift from a time long gone. A precious gift of words filled with encouragement and love, which I treasure in my soul. She wrote me often, so the bundle is thick. I praise the Lord that she lived in a time when the pen’s markings were permanently imprinted on a real page, rather than in the era of vanishing words in cyber-space. I hold that bundle of letters in my hands as if to hang on to her in an effort to recover her material existence, but my efforts are in vain. Twelve years ago today, she flew away from me. But I know she waits as she always did. She waits for me to come home again after a long separation, as she always did when she was here and waited for me to return to the childhood house after life split us apart.

Her letters and her memories are all I’ve got of her today. That’s enough. I don’t need anything more, for she lives in my heart.

Randomly, I get one out of the bundle. I look at the classic “air mail” envelop that encloses it and see that it is addressed to our old Brookfield, Ohio apartment, our first “home” here in the U.S.A. I pull the letter out the opening on the side where I carefully ripped it 16 years ago. (I remember Dan always commenting on how odd it was that I opened envelops from Panama by ripping them from the side?! : )

I carefully hold it between my hands and unfold it slowly. It is a two-page neatly written account of the events that took place when my family said goodbye to 1995 back in Panama; a few short months after I had left my country of birth for good.

I could not help but crying as I read it. I cried not only because I would never, ever read a newly written letter from my dear Mother again in my life, but also because the events that she so happily narrates in it are very unlikely to ever happening again either. She tells me about the jolly time they had, including members of our family long gone now, some by Divine destiny, some by choice. She tells me about toasting to 1996 with a glass of Champaign and about the melancholy in her heart for having me so far away. She ends almost every paragraph stating how much she misses me and how much she prays for my well being. She isn’t short on praises for my then young and always loving husband. Tucked in there, there is a line that brought a smile to my sadden face. She writes about how she sees the great love Dan has for me and about his high “moral and cultural” standard. I had to laugh at that!

She doesn’t spare her blessings for us as a young couple and reminds me several times how I must be patient and wait in the Lord for He will meet all my needs. She even congratulates us on the purchase of our very first computer! (That made me smile too : ) She points out how such purchase will enhance my prospects for finding a good job soon. She closes with one last line of encouragement, cheering me up, wishing me the best, sending me her love and showering me with her blessings.

I fold the letter and slide it in the envelope. I lay it on my desk. I look at it one more time before putting it back in the bundle, and back in the drawer where it has been residing for the last 16 years (I remember I bought the table where I keep them when we first moved to that apartment in Brookfield in the early winter of 1996).

I can’t believe she is gone. I can’t pint-point what I miss about her the most. I miss it all. But I sure praise the Lord that I have her letters. Reading that one tonight brought fresh memories of my Mother to me on this day we remember her passing. It is a wonderful gift to have them; and I pray I could preserve them for as long as I am on this side of heaven. I also pray that one day I would get to tell her about all the comfort and joy re-reading her letters brought to my soul for years and years after she was gone.

Te quiero mucho, mama…