When my husband and I downsized in June 2006, there came to light in our attic a cardboard file bursting with the letters we had exchanged since we met. Meeting at university in 1955, we wrote to each other at least twice a week during all the vacations, and notably during the year after graduation before our wedding in June 1959. I had determined that when we married I would read all the letters again and interweave them into a sequence that anybody could understand. They were long and intimate letters, intimate not about sex because we had never gone beyond what used to be known as “heavy petting,” but mentally and emotionally intimate, about how we foresaw a future marriage relationship, the books we read, the films we saw and the topics of the day. We never used the telephone. It was not then the custom to use the phone for private conversations, which were in any case impossible because the one phone in the house was in the sitting room.
So why did I never open the cardboard file again? And why is it still unopened, in the loft in our new house, even after my husband’s recent death? I really do not know. I had a wonderful marriage, so disappointment is not a factor in my reluctance. Nor do I mind my four sons reading our love letters. I would welcome the comments of other ElderChicks. [Please comment here.]
ElderChicks 
I can’t imagine what reasons you had for never opening the box of letters before your husband died, but how wonderful for you to be able to share with your children the blossoming of your relationship with him. I think most children wonder what their parents were like when they were young. Yours have been given a special window to look through.
Margaret, the question you ask: why you never opened the box is so provocative. I don’t have an answer, of course, but I know I’ll be thinking about this a great deal. What do we do with memories?
Nostalgia is the word here. Perhaps you could invite your children on your wedding anniversary to share a “Memory Party” with you. Let your children read of the depth of your love and your happiness in each other that brought them into being. Answer their curious questions about your courtship, marriage and lives together; the joys you shared with each child on the way. Bring out long ago family pictures and listen to the exclamations over those as your children pour over all the memories. This certainly wouldn’t hurt any hearts, including yours. It would deepen your family closeness and love and your relationship with them.
I just returned from a visit with my 92 year old mother, I am 71…soon to be 72. She is very active, agile and ageless to me. I asked many questions of my mother about my parent’s courtship, wedding and lives together at that early time. We talked about many things and I learned fascinating stories about my family and my extended family. It made me feel closer to my mother and my family. Your children will certainly come with curiosity…and what grandchild hasn’t asked a grandparent about what their mama or daddy was like when they were children. Nostalgia, curiosity, pictures, stories and mom, ask them to tell who they were in their eyes while growing up as your children.
Sorry this got so long winded…but it is just a loving suggestion. Could be done around a special meal and celebration.
Have a loving time,
Barb Shelton
I believe you must be Margaret Fielden, rather than Felden. And you must be talking about the Mark who bicycled with Jack and Sandy (and you) so long ago. I wonder if when you found the file you and Mark were not tempted to look at those letters. Maybe just sharing this experience will give you the nudge to open that file and start reading. I hope so, as it should bring wonderful memories, right? Let us know!
Love, Christine
Margaret, I thought I was the only romantic left holding on to early courtship letters. You sparked off memories of my own experiences in the latter part of our courtship of 1950-52 when oceans separated me from my future husband four and a half thousand miles away.
The delivery of our airmail letters to each other were at least three weeks apart. We had no other means of communication and when my fiancee’s letters dried up over several weeks without explanation I was informed that there had been terrible floods in Kenya and he was gazetted as missing. Another letter did arrive and was post-flood.
It was another year before I set sail from London for a three week voyage to marry. The passage of time served us well. Our intermittent letters only strengthened our loving determination to be together and to live a most unusual life in Africa.
Thank you, Margaret, for reviving the memory.
There is a PS to my article. The last sentence or two was actually cut off in transmission to the website. I told how my third son rootling in the attic found the box of letters by accident. He eagerly assured me he and his wife would do the interleaving necessary to make sense of the record. I await their reactions! Watch this space.
Meanwhile, I have been very moved by the responses to my blog. How kind and sensitive you all are! I am glad I shared it with you.