My Post Office Box 205 was full today, it was good to get a bigger size, there were letters from all over the country, and I have a new bedtime ritual, I make myself some tea and sit quietly in the living room and read as many as I can. I will pick out several and write about them tomorrow. I keep having this sense of a Lost World, of forgotten people expressing themselves in a personal and comfortable way, taking more than a few seconds to compose and send their messages to me. It is now clear I will not be able to answer all of them, but I am reading all of them and will answer as many as I can.
The first one was from Janis is Sioux City, Iowa, she is in palliative care for ovarian cancer, her handwriting was rough and labored, the lines uneven. “I do not have that long to go,” she said, “I am at peace with death, I have come to terms with it, I am surrounded by family and friends.”
“I wanted to write you, Jon, I have been following your blog for some years, and your life and your books before that and somehow the stories and words have settled me and grounded me and are as sweet a part of the morning as my coffee, which I love. I am on Facebook and sometimes enjoy it, but I am a letter writer, I have not had a dog for many years or a cat, I have just been too busy for either. Your daily journaling is a valuable thing to many of us, perhaps more than you know. You don’t seem to be conscious of it. You and I share the idea that life is a wheel that keeps turning. Mine is turning now.”
She said she was tired, and could not write anymore but she wanted to say “thank you and goodbye, and continue to grow and be happy.” She thanked me for never giving up on love, it was the breathe of life. She said she admires the idea of Red and Simon and she said to say hello to Maria, whose writing and art she loves. Her daughter, she said, hopes to send a sweater and some hankies to Maria, perhaps to make a quilt. Her writing grew less legible, and so she said goodbye.
I thank you Janis, and wish you the sweetest and most peaceful journey to the other side.
I am grateful to my magical post office box for sending me a letter like that, it will surely make me think and feel. Good night from Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.