Letter: “Mom, There Are Airplanes”

Once upon a time – and truth be told this story that follows happens time and time again because life, and love, and loss happens – there was a beautiful woman who was sad and despairing following the death of the love of her life.

Meanwhile, miles and miles, impossible miles, far, far away in what seemed like another country, there was a man, sad and despairing following the loss of the love of his life.

For her part, it was just another day, one listless day after another without him, days, and months, and years.

Listless days of listless tasks to do.

Or not do.

After all, not all that much really seemed much to matter anymore. Such a huge unfillable hole in her heart.

But one day, for whatever reason, she happened to see a story written by a man whose days were spent wandering, searching, somehow trying to fill the void in his heart as he wrote about how much he had loved her, the emptiness he felt without her.

He wrote that, for whatever reason, he had returned to the mountains and in doing so, without thought at all, he happened on a trail that led him to a lake and there on that shore, in the shadow of that mountain, he remembered.

He remembered that it was in this very spot, another lifetime ago, they had sat here together so much in love. And it was then that he realized he’d been somehow irresistibly drawn to the place where it had all begun.

And across the country, as she read his story, something happened in her heart as she read again of his own heart poured out on paper.

He wondered as he wandered at the serendipity of having found himself in this so special place, with these so special memories.

Absently, lost in thought, he picked up one of the many chestnuts lying about. Smiling again at the memory of when the two of them had done this together, he sliced it open and there they were, the two of them, loved and lover, side by side.

“That’s us,” he had smiled then as he had pulled her closer.

This day though he removed one of the chestnuts.

And just like that the tears came as he looked at the one remaining.

“That’s me,” he whispered, quietly, because there was no one to hear.

The phone rang. It was her daughter. Just checking in on her mom.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Whatever kind of days, stuff to do, I guess. Maybe I’ll go for a drive to the mountains.”

And just like that, at her own mention of mountains, she remembered.

She told her daughter then of the man in the mountains and how they had actually connected and she didn’t even know how that happened and that there was something about him, and, well, she rambled on about their conversations at which point her daughter interrupted.

“Mom?”

But mom didn’t hear. She continued on, her voice finally trailing off, mentioning yet again, maybe for the third time, maybe more, that he was so very, very far away.

The daughter, so like her mother, tenderhearted, quiet, sensitive, able to read the unspoken, unwritten words of the heart – said it again.

“Mom?”

“Yes baby girl?”

“There are airplanes.”