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| Letter from Opa to Grandmother: October 24, 1944 |
October 24, 1944
My Darling,
Your nice, sweet letter came today, and it made me feel good and blue at the same time. It’s a kind of blue that I like, though, for there is much uplifting and even comfort in a longing of which we know that it will sometime be fulfilled. Every task seems so much simpler when I know that you love me, and that we will be reunited sometime.
Tonight in the mail, I got the enclosed letter from the Shelleys. It’s a nice one, isn’t it? As you see… you made the grade with them. (Of which I never had any doubt.)
Philip is back, and we had a good visit tonight. He came back by the way of Wichita, which is one of the reasons he didn’t stop to see you. Another probably was that he will get that pleasure (?) pretty soon here at Camp Crowder. He is a swell guy.
You were certainly right about Johnny. He has lost most of his self-consciousness and has become much smoother all the way around.
Today, I was on range detail. We fixed targets, hauled timber, did some carpentry work and similar odd jobs all day; it was fairly simple. Tomorrow night, I’ll be on guard duty: two hours on, four off, two on again, etc. So, I’ll try to get some good sleep tonight.
I wrote another letter to St. John today concerning radio, etc. I think the stuff has just not been sent off yet but will be soon, for my letter was pretty sharp.
Another thing I did tonight was to write a long letter to Eileen. I should have written to her much sooner but it is really difficult to find enough time to write all these letters and, naturally you have priority on letters.
Here is the bugle: got to go back to the barracks. Good night, honey. I hope that, instead of writing good-night, I can kiss you good-night soon.
Lovingly,
Tom.
Return Shelley's letter, will you please?
“Every task seems so much simpler when I know that you love me.”
I almost missed this phrase the first reading. Just skipped by his greetings and went to the meat of the letter. This phrase is the perfect example of what it feels like to be in love. Everything is simplified- whittled down to the foundational truth: someone loves me. And that is enough.
The way Opa starts this letter, I can’t deny he is in love. And not just a romance - the kind of love that grounds you and makes you feel like everything is going to be OK- because you have your person. I’m not sure how rare this love is, I think it actually isn’t all that rare. I see it everywhere. I have it. It may not be rare, but it is precious. Grandmother and Opa had their ups and downs, but they had love. They were married 57 years before Opa died.
Unless Grandmother ignored all of Opa’s requests (I doubt it, she was responsible/thorough), Opa kept all these letters from friends and family- but I never saw them. So at some point he made the choice to pare down the letters- and the only ones that made it were his immediate family’s (and Grandmother kept his letters we're reading now). Did he throw any of his family's letters away? Maybe Emma wrote him by herself and he tossed it, lol. (Emma is his "stepmom" that everyone in the family merely tolerated.) Now each of these letters feel so precious to me- and I mourn the information and context that each additional letter would have given. I have no claim to any of these, yet every missing letter, every story of letters being tossed by the new wife of the widowed spouse. Opa's sister, Patti, after she died, her husband remarried, and that woman threw away all of her collected letters, part of my cultural inheritance… it makes my heart sink. These people are my family, my history, my perspective. I crave every word and nuance like an archaeologist craves shards of pottery.
Every time Opa mentions St. John’s I’m reminded that these letters are almost daily- it seems like he’s been away from there for years but it hasn’t been that long. He’s still trying to get his stuff sent to him- including his radio (which he always loved his radio). I wonder if the landlord is being intentionally late or just apathetic.
I still think it’s crazy that Opa’s brother in law, Phillip, happened to be at the same base.
