Put It In Writing

This year may shape up to be my year of letters. Remember letters? Writing on paper, fold, put in envelope, seal, stamp, hippity hop to the letter box. After awhile, back by mail comes a response, or anyway an acknowledgment.
That was part of what was fun about letters. Several days elapsed between when you put pen to paper and when the recipient actually got to read what you had written. By the time an answering letter materialized, you may have forgotten what exactly you had felt so passionately about on the day of your writing. Or your respondent has shied away from addressing whatever issues you raised, necessitating another attempt to communicate the same information so as to elicit a direct response. And, in between letters, you could re-read the old ones. And you could keep them: in a desk drawer, in a shoebox, tied up with ribbon or rubber bands, wrapped in a silk scarf, hidden under a rug in the closet - the possibilities were almost infinite.
As my father used to pithily remark, "You gotta write 'em to get 'em". So, I will. I'll write 'em. I may not send 'em. Some of the people I may wish to address are no longer walking among us. Some of the people I may wish to address would instantly discard anything that came from me, including a birthday card with money enclosed. The following will not be sent.
Dear Poor Excuse for a Daughter-In-Law:
I hope you read Ann Lander's daughter's column in the paper today. Or maybe she's Abigail Van Buren's daughter or granddaughter but that probably doesn't matter so much. Today she wrote about just desserts for daughters-in-law who mistreat their mothers-in-law. It is simple and a little too perfect. What happens? Sonny boy marries a woman just like his darling Mom. Oops.
But you wouldn't recognize yourself as an abusive daughter-in-law. You never saw how mean and dismissive you were towards your mother, even as you followed in her dog rescuing foot steps. You never noticed how uncomfortable it made me and other members of my family (possibly even including my son, who stuck staunchly by you anyway) when you made the boys perform their stuff like little seals or when you spoke to them as though they were brain-damaged puppies.
I will write letters and save them for your sons, just in case they ever make a break for freedom. It appears that you have them convinced they can't live without you - or is it the other way around? You can't live without them? So it's unlikely that they will be encouraged to launch. You'll just turn the garage into a studio apartment and the three of you can hunker down in front of the gas fireplace with your veggie burgers and Tater Tots and play Wii sports.
You had a lot of promise, in those days you were cutting my son out of the herd and talking about becoming an environmental lawyer. Watching you sail through your masters program in economics, I figured you could do anything you put your mind to. That you were opinionated and self-righteous and very prickly in new situations seemed like assets, as you wended your way through a series of local government jobs. And even though my son didn't get why you insisted on that wedding dress with the nine mile train, the cliff top wedding amidst the succulents, the harpist for god's sake, it looked like love was a go, so fine.
When did it stop being a go? Why did he throw his wedding ring off a freeway overpass in LA? Something to do with your failure to honor your promise to join him at UCLA? After your previous failure to join him while he started med school at Syracuse? I didn't know until recently how hard you had fought to keep him from going to med school. All these years, I'd assumed you were the one promoting it. But then you hated Syracuse and wouldn't move there. And then you hated LA and wouldn't move there.
I guess I don't really care to know when love slipped out your door or how many people you thought might be better life mates for you than the one you had chosen. At the point when you told my son you didn't want to live in a loveless marriage, why didn't you do the honorable thing and negotiate separate existences that worked for everyone involved? Why did you insist that the boys take sides?