A legacy of letters

 While we were at our in-laws, they gave each of the children a big box or two of memories. They had kept all of Kathy’s letters home when she was in college. All the cards and letters I sent from seminary. Along with that there are pictures and copies and in some cases originals of childhood class grades and reports and such. We now have what appears to be my wife’s grandparents high school diplomas. Kathy is the eldest so I guess she got more stuff and more of the originals. We will take good care of them. I am rereading some of this stuff.

Kathy and I met at Judson college 36 years ago. It was a wonderful courtship. We were so young. So fresh and new. I didn’t write home to my family. Kathy’s wise parents promised her $5 cash every week that she wrote home. She wrote very regularly! I met her as she waited for a letter from home at the campus mail room. Most of the stuff in those letters wouldn’t interest anyone but her and her family, but they are fun to read from this distance.

There is one letter among the older family letters that I made a copy of for my permanent keeping with me. It is a letter from Kathy’s grandma Jensen about how she and her husband to be went from "just friends" to "just considering a future together". It is so touching. The letter concludes with grandpa saying that he wanted to get things clear with grandma whether they were going to sail out into life in one boat together or two boats separately. Grandma and Grandpa Jensen were the two people most spiritually connected to me in perhaps my whole life. We used to have morning devotions together for years every day before I went to class. I love those two.

I’m going now to read some more family stuff. This is the good stuff.