I found two love notes from my dad to my mom. They were written back when they were still dating. I’ll do my best to translate one of them here. His eloquence might be lost, though. All ellipses are his.
“Truthfully there is no gift valuable enough for you…and truthfully this is what is most valuable to me: that you already own me and my love.
However, this Christmas night, let one more thing that is hardly enough in value be yours, too, because as you said, “anything from [me] is truly worthy”…I am happy because of it. From this day, I hope you and I become even happier.”
Merry Christmas ‘87, my jewel!
The note made me more angry and sad than anything, and it bothered me all day. I couldn’t reconcile this romantic image of my father with the image I have of him as an absentee leader of the family who has only made one feeble attempt to reconnect during the seven years of no contact.
The guy who wrote this note—where did he go? He was 23 when he wrote this, and I can definitely see where I get my writing skills from. But I just—I’m sad and angry because these words feel empty now, and deep down, I wish they wouldn’t feel that way.
I’m trying to focus on the fact that at least love did exist between my parents at some point. I didn’t mean for this to trip me up so badly, but it did.