“Time went on as it does. The phone calls continued, and I received rare letters from Mother. They usually said how much she missed me. They never talked about things we discussed on the phone, and they were very infrequent. Mother never gave me any hint that anything was amiss; that is, until one day, I got a longer than usual letter in the mail.”
Love,
I miss you. I get pretty lonely without anyone here, and one night, I wanted to see some of your things. I went to the attic and sat on the floor and reminisced with the things you put in your box. That is, until I got to the bottom and found your ” Top Secret! ” box.
I initially didn ‘ t look at it, but then I asked myself, what could possibly be there? My thought at the time was that at worst, it could be a magazine with nude women or something, but that would be normal for a boy. I ‘ ll tell you; I was a little taken back by what I eventually found in there.
My heart almost exploded when I saw all the notes you kept that I wrote you over the years. I happily cried there in the attic as I read them. What are the hearts for? Are those your favorites? Why did you keep them?
Write me back. I ‘ d love to be able to hold something new of yours.
Love,
Your Mother
P.S. Please write your response to my questions in a letter and not speak them on the phone.
Two
“I didn’t know what to think about what she said. It was all harmless, but she asked me questions for which the answers might cause her distress. Whatever sexual feelings I had for Mother then would never be an excuse to cause her distress. I loved her too much.
“Now, listen; I remember this thought exactly. I remember thinking that there was a reason she wanted to know only via a letter. Questions ran through my mind. Did she not want me to bring up her questions at all on the phone? The final thing that enticed me was the thought that she wanted to explore a thought she had, but was taking the safe way of that exploration. Mother had doubt. If she spoke and I didn’t respond the way she thought I would, then she could take her time and recuperate through a written letter. On the phone, it would take all she had not to show her discomfort with how wrong she would feel. I needed her to know she wasn’t wrong in her thoughts. I wrote her back.”
My dear Mother,
My collection of the notes you wrote me does not comprise all the notes you ever wrote. It was most of them, though. We ‘ ve always been frank with each other in our discussions, but something feels different about this one as I ‘ m writing it. No matter; I ‘ ve never hidden anything from you, and I won ‘ t start now.
To start, the notes with a heart on the back of them are my favorites. There ‘ s no single reason why I chose them. They could be because of how they made me feel in that moment, because they lifted my spirits when I needed, or because I simply enjoyed the words.
As I grew older, I know I put hearts on more of the notes and I ‘ ll tell you in all honesty why. As I began to mature, I began to see you more as a woman than as my Mother. Don ‘ t get me wrong, you ‘ re always going to be my Mom, but I found myself observing you as a woman; not JUST my Mother. I found myself a bit disturbed that I felt that way, but I never let it go.