Long Gone, But Still Speaking

I apologize for my silence these past few weeks. I've been sitting at a long, long table, listening to my ancestors.

For years I've meant to go through the dusty trunk under the basement stairs. Finally I couldn't ignore its call any longer; I blew off the dust and cobwebs and hauled it upstairs, thumping up the steps one by one. Then, with a squeal of rusty hinges, I opened the lid.

Letters. Hundreds of them. It was full of letters - bundles of them, wrapped in twine or brittle rubber bands. Tiny envelopes with postmarks and old, old stamps, addressed in faded writing.

From the topmost bundle I picked out a small envelope, dark with age. It was postmarked 1861, Roxbury, Vermont. Carefully I unfolded the letter, squinted at the lines of perfect script, and read, "Dear Aunt, I'm sorry I haven't written for so long. We are so busy here..." Most of it was chatty and full of little details - the garden, the new dog. But then I read: "Gardner looks so handsome in his new blue uniform. They depart for Harper's Ferry on Sunday..."

The next, marked 1864, was written in a hurried scrawl: "Crops is good here. I aim to sell the mules if I can git a good price...The war is draggin on. I burn to be with you on the battlefield. Keep yur nerv up and put a ball in the harts of them trators..."

I kept reading. The next one had a Red Cross stamp on the back, and was postmarked 1919: "I am sorry to bring you sad news Your Aunt Vera and Uncle George is died of the 'flu..."

There was a college letter from a young man in 1930, with rounded, careful writing: "Dear Mother, I am settling in all right. I like all my professors..."

And this one, postmarked Montana, 1892: "I was so very happy to receive your letter. It is so lonely out here sometimes I feel I cannot stand another day..."

Delicate copperplate writing on fine paper, scrawled words on lined sheets torn from notebooks, bold script on hotel stationery. Sisters chatting, homesick young mothers with new babies, busy farmers, shy lovers and gossipy aunts; pens held in careful young hands or stiff old fingers. As I read them, peering at the faded writing, little by little they begin to come to life again. I can almost hear them speaking.

I've found surprises, too: a cartoon cut from the newspaper, a poem, a recipe for apple tarts. From one envelope, I unfolded a sheet of paper to find a silken curl of a child's hair, with the written words, "Susie cut her hair yesterday."

Sometimes they mention the great events of the time - wars, change, politics - but mostly they just tell the little things that made up their days: the chicks hatching, the baby's first steps, Grandfather's rheumatism.

It's been like sitting at a long, long table full of people I hardly know. I feel a bit guilty, to be honest - like I'm eavesdropping on the guests at a dinner party, hearing just a scrap or two of their conversation. And the table stretches on and on, and off there in the distance the voices are silent. I know them only as a name on a family tree, a census or a ship manifest.

But on these pages I meet them one by one. Every one of them is long gone from this earth, but with each page, they speak again. As I read, I laugh at their stories, shake my head at their sorrows and roll my eyes at their strange ways. We're a world apart, but I wish I'd known them all.

And as I read, I start to wonder - who will read my words when I'm gone? Among the outpouring of Facebook posts and emails and tweets, have I said anything that someone will read and care enough to save in some box somewhere?

Maybe it's time I pick up a pen and write a few lines, too - put down on paper what it's like to be living in our world in 2022, with all our struggles. Then, someday, perhaps someone who isn't even born yet will read my words.

Maybe even these words right here.

Every letter ended with their names, and a final farewell:

Write soon, Earl

All my love, Mother

Your ever loving Harriet

Have to go now - Bill

Fondly, Your Nephew

Here is mine.

Stay safe and well,

Heather