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« on: May 22, 2024, 06:19:21 AM »
Go through all your stuff. With a fine tooth comb, every drawer, every last corner of your closets, pretending you are your own children and grandchildren and you are dead.
One thing we found: A letter written in 1916 to my grandmother shortly after she married my grandfather. It was from a guy she had apparently friend zoned. He opened by expressing shock to have been informed of her marriage, then wished her all the happiness in the world. Then, he went on for several sentences about how hurt he was that she didn’t choose him, that she didn’t care anything for him while he basically worshipped her. But still, he is thrilled she found the man of her dreams (my grandfather) and hoped to become good friends with him! Ended with repeated wishes for all the happiness she “so justly” deserves, even though “she and fate conspired” against them being together; nevertheless he will always love her.
Imagine shortly after your wedding getting a letter like that from a guy you thought was “just a friend”. Creepy! And then you keep the letter! And your son finds it after you die and he keeps it! And then a century later your grandchildren, whom you never met, end up with it. (She died young.)
Or imagine you’re the guy and you write that highly personal letter in a frenzy of conflicting emotion, and a century later a bunch of strangers are reading it. But there’s one thing I got from it: Young guys then were no different than young guys today; getting a crush on some female who thinks of him like a “brother” but being too shy to do anything about it, then getting their heart broken when she gets serious with somebody else.
That’s just one of many interesting things we found. And we barely scratched the surface of all the crap in mom’s house.