I’ve been working on revisions to a chapter, and while looking for additional details to add I went back to a letter my parents sent me from January, 1977, just after I returned to Sligo from Christmas break. Actually it was a tape recording that I transcribed a couple of years ago, but I thought there might be something in it, so I opened the file and started reading.
For a long time after my boarding school time ended I looked back on the experience only from my point of view. With a sense of anger and bewilderment, I’d stew over what my parents had done to me. My stance has changed significantly, of course, as I’ve grown older and better understand what they were thinking and going through. Reading the letter yesterday I gained a whole new level of understanding. I could hear my parents’ voices on the tape again, and it hurt to think of them all those years ago worrying whether I got back to school safely, was there anyone to meet me, and was the Alaskan moose sausage spoiled by the time British Airways found my lost luggage.
And then there is the plea to write and thank my grandmother for the Christmas gifts. “We had a letter from Granny. Granny is very anxious to hear that you’re in Sligo again and wants to hear from you so please do write to her and please thank her for the Christmas presents. She’s very anxious to know if you liked your underwear and your gloves, so please do write a letter of appreciation to Granny because she went to a lot of trouble to get those.“
Granny would have shopped up the town in Ballygawley, Northern Ireland, or ventured by Ulsterbus into Dungannon, a larger town close by. Either way it would have been an effort. As luck would have it, I happened to have an appropriate photo in the archives:
Christmas 1976, Anchorage, Alaska
I love this post, Richard. It’s so mellow, so reflective. And the details stand out: “was the Alaskan moose sausage spoiled by the time British Airways found my lost luggage.” Neat.