packet full of... REAL LIFE

back in 2006, when we had gone home for a month, time flew... social visits took a large dose of time, as is always the case, though i have not-very-successfully trimmed the number of social calls that we are supposed to make, over time... and all for the sake of my Mom, who still feels that her world will collapse without those calls, though such calls are never reciprocated... none of the others visiting the city bother to call on her... yet she feels that we should... what will relatives think about you? i have not been able to convince her that it does not matter what they think of me... i am past 40, have my own life, as they have theirs... so it does not matter what they think of me and us... either way is fine with me... but she is insistent and to my utter indignation, she goes ahead and fixes the programme, lunch with uncle A, tea with aunt C, dinner with cousin X...but only limited to those days when i am all hers...
so after meeting some relatives who mom feels are very very close to her, it was almost time for me to get back...
she handed me a packet and said, "these are for you to go back and read... don't open them now. and after you have read them, throw them away."
short of time, i obeyed for once without trying to negotiate...
got back, settled, joined work, but that packet kept intriguiging me...
opened the packet... it had two sets of old letters... one set written by my Dad to my Mom, way back in 1960 when they were married and the other set, the replies...
i started reading them... so matter-of-fact, so down-to-earth, so mature was the tone of my Dad... my Mom, on the other hand, i could understand from her replies, could have done with a little bit of mush from her husband, but could not achieve it... and after a while stopped asking for it...
48 years back, possibly that was what romance was between two just-married souls...
for me, i have kept them back as safely as i can, no Mom has never asked about them...
i will take it to grave with me, will tell R when she grows since no one else will understand the spirit of those letters...