Mysterious Artemis

How many beautiful love stories does one live in a lifetime? The years pass, and I see now that they are far more precious and rare than I ever expected. Kisses, crushes, love interests, “partners”, relationships even, they come and go…but how many love letters can you hold open and read on a cold day?

How many folded pieces of parchment do you have, in an envelope addressed to you, inscribed with words like,

“Tu est une ange! Je t’adore toujours. Je t’embrasse ma cherie.”

and signed,

“Bisoux~”

Me, I don’t have any at all.

It is one of the great sadnesses of my life that I lost the most beautiful letters I’ve ever received. Each precious one I pored over for hours, and many days and months after that.  I would trace the curves of the ink with my finger, knowing that my love’s hand had done just the same. I knew that he wrote those words with the same handsome fountain pen used to write my address the last time I’d seen him.

I counted the days in anticipation of each new note. About ten days after I’d sent my reply, it would come. At the foot of our elaborately carved Victorian stairs, under a bouquet of flowers, I would see that cream envelope and every time my heart leapt. Without a word to my mother I would rush upstairs to open it. I was sixteen and in love, then seventeen and still the letters arrived from my beautiful man. Though he was nineteen, he seemed so old to me. Handsome, blond and worldly, this young man from the south of France sent me sunshine in the form of affection I could understand, handwritten love letters we grew into for years.

I pressed the memory of his golden, shining smile into my heart so it could never leave. When I was eighteen the letters slowed, and heartbroken, I thought his devotion had drifted. In all this time we had spent only a few hours together, and our plans to meet again never took shape. I left for college, my parents moved, and I was left with only old letters and the two photos he’d sent over the course of the previous years. My life was starting and he became a memory of a dream I’d had of being fantastically loved.

That is, until he found me. Twenty years later, long after the advent of email and facebook, he found me. Imagine my surprise when I saw his friend request…

“Why did you stop writing?” I half-teased. “I kept hoping I’d hear from you…”

“You disappeared!” He said. “Where did you go? I went to find you, I went right to your house on Cape Cod but you had moved! I tried to call. I found your friend, but your phone number had changed as well, and she had no idea where you were. You were gone! Why didn’t you tell me? I was so sad!”

I had broken his heart, and I’d had no idea.

We’ve chatted briefly now, and after twenty years I can see his face in facebook photographs.  I see both a boy and a man, with a recognizable smile, older now, distinguished. I see a lover and a stranger, fantasy, reality, my present and my youth…and a beautiful story. What I wouldn’t give to read those letters again.

Merci, cheri~~

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Historical Note: The same month he came looking for me, I heard of email for the first time, and opened my first student account.

Neither the letters nor the missed connection would have happened a few months later. How did your life change that year?

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