I went through my safe this evening in order to find two letters. These two letters were opened with a knife, not my usual ripping.
I never saw them until I took a box of cards and photos home from my mother’s house in the spring of 2024 as we were cleaning it out to be sold.
The two letters were from two young men I dated while away at school. I am looking for dates on these, not just content.
There was a period of busy months when I lived in a nearby city while my mail still came to Enwood. I am hoping these letters came during that period and were simply forgotten by my parents.

My dad had the habit of turning the stack of mail face down to cut each envelope open before turning them face up to remove the contents. I do not feel that they were intentionally cut open to be read. I did find two more Christmas cards that were cut open that I had read. This gave me some comfort.

I have waited to do this. I have had so much else to decipher. I really do not know what to do with this information when I get it. I have discovered more meddling.  There were also deflected phone calls. Was my future shaped by forces I was not aware of?

I moved out of my home and into an apartment in Statesville August of 1984. I moved back to Enwood mid-November to take a job at my alma mater high school as a biology teacher. It was a much better position and I could save money living at home.

That summer and fall were a blur of preparing for my sister’s wedding in July, both of us moving away from home and readjusting to new jobs.

The date stamps on these letters were June 20, 1984 and Dec 20, 1984. That is when it would be understandable for my family to have been too busy to remember to pass the letters along to me. It was also a time when I was making big decisions about my future.

I will choose grace here. What else can I do? My precious parents are both gone and these two men married other women. Maybe the two letters would not have changed anything.

This is just a small part of a long story. Actually, it is part of three long stories.

Flower