Lost Love Letters Read online

  I wish I could have known you better. I was young, a mere child, when you died. I didn’t understand illness, much less death. I was so mad because you wouldn’t let me sleep with you that last night that, in a fit of rebellion, I’d refused to kiss you goodnight. Then, you were gone. I was sure you’d left me because I wouldn’t give you that kiss. I know better now, of course. But, the child was devastated.

  I knew you’d been sick; however, back then, adults didn’t discuss such things as cancer or death with children, so I just assumed I’d get up one day and you’d be fine. You never let me believe differently, always acting like you’d be up and about in no time. After all, when Ricky came over to visit and it stormed, we’d pile up in bed with you and read us stories. Strange, I remember the sound of the thunder and Ricky sniffling, but not your voice. I remember when I brought home a stray kitten you let me scramble onto the bed with my somewhat the worse for wear orphan and play with it until Dad came home and took it away, explaining how you were allergic to cats. You had let me play in there for hours, never saying a word. Once again, I only remember the kitten. I would love to remember the sound of your voice. Or, the feel of your touch. It was your mother’s hand that ran the brush through my hair as she stood behind me and told me stories about the scenes we saw in her oval dressing table mirror. Would your hand have been so comforting or your voice so reassuring as I wavered between reality and fantasy—helping me step into the improbable, curious and unafraid?

  Yet, it was not my beloved grandmother who comforted me after you died, for she died shortly after you. I suppose she had run herself into the ground taking care of you, as well as me. She developed pneumonia and died suddenly. I would stand in front of her oval mirror and stare at the sad bedraggled child staring back at me. I would walk under the clothesline where she’d planted her fragrant plants so the clothes would smell good, only to feel the dry crunch of dead, forgotten plants under my feet.

  For years afterward, it seemed as though I was passed from relative to relative, a poor motherless waif. Even after Dad remarried, I remained someone else’s child. When you left, you took my “normal” with you. No one else did what you and Grandmomma did and when I’d ask the questions that came so naturally to me, they would stutter and change the subject.

  A relative once sent me a faded picture of you in your senior year. They’d said you were brilliant. I found I wanted to know more. It took a while and many emails (you don’t know what those are, do you?) before I found someone who would search old high school archives. I learned that you graduated fifth in your class. I also learned that you were going to graduate a year earlier, but for reasons unknown, your dad took you and your brother out of school and your family travelled for a year before returning to the same city where you graduated from the same school. Why? Was it your parents, or you? Back in those days, if a girl got pregnant, she went away until the baby was born. Did that happen to you? Do I have a half-sister or brother somewhere? Or was it something else, something pertaining to your “practices?”

  Although you married in your twenties, you didn’t have me until you were in your late thirties. That was fairly old back then to go through a first pregnancy. Was I a blessing or a curse? Did you even want children? When I search my memories, it’s your mother or my other grandmother or aunts who slip into my mind. Not you. When Dad would pile all the kids from the neighborhood into his huge old station wagon, tie a giant tracker inner tube on top, and tote a passel of giggling squealing kids to the beach, you never joined us. Did you know you’d be leaving this world and me? Were you purposefully distancing yourself from me, even then?

  I wonder, what were your dreams? I heard you worked before you married Dad. Did you work after or take the traditional role so common back then? Or, did you aspire to break the mold and be a career woman. I was told once that you and your brother were ballroom dancers. Was the theater in your blood? Is that where my daughter got her love of the stage? Were you musically inclined like the rest of your family? Could you sing? If you could, you didn’t pass it on to me. I can’t carry a note, though I would love to be able to sing. I’ve sworn that, in the next life, I’ll sing like a nightingale. I did sing to your grandchildren, crooning them to sleep, but they were songs I learned, not songs passed down from my mother.

  I heard somewhere you were the life of any party. I do remember one hot summer night, when all the neighbors had gathered in our yard for after-dinner cocktails—people don’t do that much anymore, by the way—you decided that the grass needed mowing right then and there. It didn’t matter that it was a black, moonless night. You grabbed a flashlight and walked beside the mower, lighting the way. Unfortunately, you walked on the wrong side and it took weeks for the grass stains to wear off your legs. You looked as green as the pet frogs you used to call.

  Speaking of which...I didn’t know not all mothers could “call” animals. Once, when you’d been sick for a while, something woke me early one morning. I made it a habit of looking in on you as I passed your bedroom door. But, when I peeked into your room, you weren’t there. I came down the stairs to find the front door open. There you were, out front in the lawn chair, just as the light was just pushing away the darkness, with birds perching on the chair while you fed them bits of bread. I watched your hand move over the grass and a squirrel edged closer to get his share. I stood there for the longest time just watching, thinking how you looked like one of the fairies in my books. I crept back to bed, knowing if I went out, they’d all go away. Today, I wonder if I dreamed it. I don’t think so, for you seemed to fit that image, one foot here and the other in a different world.

  I don’t have your talent with animals, as much as I wish otherwise. I’ve managed to raise a few dogs and cats, mostly strays that find their way to our house. It’s your grandson who inherited your oneness with the wild. I’ve never seen anything like it, except with you. On occasion, he will give me a picture he’s taken of a fawn or squirrel or a bird that is so up close you’d think we had a fancy camera. We don’t. I’ve seen birds perch on the window or chair, waiting for him and I smile, remembering that day so long ago.

  As to people, we are a bit more weary. Maybe it’s the time in which we live; it’s not a very trusting time. I’m not sure you’d like it here now. You seem to be of a different time.

  Your generosity seemed boundless. A woman came to our door and handed you a card. She was selling necklaces and could neither hear nor speak. Suddenly, your fingers were moving as you opened the door and ushered her into the kitchen. There you sat, drinking tea, the two of you, silent, fingers flying. I remember the woman’s eyes sparkling with laughter. Before she left, you filled a paper bag with groceries and gave it to her. She returned a few more times over the years, always bringing you a gift—something woven—a mat, a basket, a necklace. She came when you were sick and sat beside your bed, her fingers slowly moving in the palm of your hand.

  Once, you heard there was an old man living in a shanty in the woods. You packed a basket and we tromped through the woods to find him. We found the shanty empty, but you left the basket, anyway. We made our way home, where you cleaned our scratches from the brambles. A week later, the basket was sitting on our porch, filled with wild flowers. It seemed as though there was always someone for you to help. After you died, Dad found checks you’d written to unknown people in different purses. Dad just shook his head and cried.

  No one ever said I reminded them of you. I took after Dad with the blonde hair and blue eyes, although I would have loved your rich auburn hair and green eyes. My children, too, have my blonde looks. In my teens, I think I wanted to look more like you and died my hair red. I discovered I don’t have the coloring to be a redhead. But, I am tall like you, only I failed to inherit your coordination. I tried modeling and managed to fall off the runway. I tried surfing, but soon realized I looked better sitting atop a surfboard rather than flailing about fighting to keep my balance.

  I spent much of my youth trying to u
nravel the mystery that you and your mother left for me. I knew the few lessons I’d had were real and what I experienced was special. After you and your mother were gone, bereft of your passing, I wanted to do something to be closer. I went into your room, pulled out the bottom drawer of the tall dresser so I could stand on the edge and look into the triple mirror that sat on top. The room was dark, the only light filtering from the hallway. When I pulled myself up, I saw the black silhouette of a horse and carriage race across the bottom of the mirror. Startled, I slipped and fell. My foot stuck in the drawer and they found me, screaming, covering my eyes. It took years for me to be able to look into a mirror in the dark. Like then, things only happen to me. I can never make them happen. Many happenings have occurred over the years that I believe, had I been properly trained, I would have been able to understand, investigate, or manipulate. I always seem to be on the outside looking in.

  As someone once explained to me, “It’s like tuning an old timey radio. Most of the stations are static. You’re lucky when you get a clear signal.” Well, I seem to slip right past those of the signals most of the time. On occasion, my perception will heighten and I will have an experience—but, just enough to remind me that I am your child.

  In spite of predictions to the contrary, I found my calling. I became a writer. Actually, it chose me. I was as surprised as anyone. I aimed toward neuroscience. I wanted to know the physical features for all the untenable aspects of our minds. I wrote the technical to earn credibility and fiction to delve into the unknown. Now, I write paranormal romance. Funny, that genre didn’t exist in your day. Let me explain it this way. All the things you and your mother could do, but hid from the world, I write about. I thought for a time that I’d inherited some of your and your mother’s “talents.” I’m not so sure anymore. What came so easily to the two of you seems always just out of reach for me. The few lessons I had from your mother were too few, too long ago. No matter what books I’ve poured over, there just doesn’t seem to be that click of recognition. Maybe it was something that had to be taught to a child, to develop from an early stage, when the mind and heart are open to possibilities and unafraid of the unknown. So, rather than allow it to die with her or you, I write about it. I dress it in fiction, embellish it with fantasy, and share it with the world. Because, no matter how far we’ve come with technology and science and medical advances, the world still isn’t ready for all that you were.

  In some way, I try to preserve the memories a small child had of a special woman in her life. Although I have asked questions, not much has been divulged. I don’t think it was intentional, either just too painful or too personal. I have passed the few stories I have of you on to your grandchildren and, through my fiction, to posterity.

  Know, that although you are gone, you are not forgotten, and you will always be loved by your daughter,

  Shanon Grey

  Shanon Grey

  Shanon Grey weaves romance and suspense with threads of the paranormal. THE SHOPPE OF SPELLS was the first in her series, The GateKeepers, about the quaint town of Ruthorford, Georgia and its very special inhabitants. MEADOW’S KEEP, Book II of The GateKeepers, has just been released. PENNYROYAL CHRISTMAS ~A Ruthorford Holiday Story~ gives another insight to Ruthorford’s special descendants. Under contract with Crossroads Publishing House, her books are available in e-format and print at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most booksellers. Shanon spent her life on coasts, both the beautiful Atlantic and the balmy Gulf. Hurricane Katrina taught her the fragility of life and the strength of friendship, family, and starting over. She just found out that her son salvaged notes and pages of her original novel, Capricorn’s Child, which she thought had been destroyed with everything else. (Ironically, a neighbor found her marriage certificate in a tree.) She plans to resurrect her original novel one day. She currently lives in Coweta County, Georgia, trading the familiarity of the coast for the lush beauty and wonder of the mountains, where her husband fulfilled her lifelong dream—to live in a cottage in the woods, where inspiration abounds.

  You can join her on Facebook at facebook.com/ShanonGrey, follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ShanonGrey and visit her website at shanongrey.com.

  Contact her at [email protected]. She would love to hear from you.

  Find Shanon online at shanongrey.com

  Thanks for reading!

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