Lily Ogden
Letters
Mementos are left behind, but do they haunt if there is no one left to remember them? There are boxes of things collected, burnt matchsticks, movie tickets, a stray button. Memories that meant something and that once exploded in relevance.
Tins of postcards, a pressed flower, a small shell.
I have a box of letters from my father. I didn't meet him until I was 25 and then we wrote, became awkward penfriends. He was only visiting at the time and was living in another country. We were not close enough to share long walks and estranged silences. There was a feeling that an effort should be made. An attempt at familiarity. It was too late for childhood so we tried to share as grownups. Neither of us wanted missed opportunities. And so we wrote.
The beginning letters are polite and straight forward and there is never any mention of regret. I know that my letters to him started with “Dear Henry” and in the space of just a few months I was writing “Dear Dad.” He is dead now. Unfortunately our relationship never reached the warmth that was promised in correspondence. I am still haunted by that time that held so much expectation. The vague promises of a parent written with flourish on moth coloured paper.
When I die I have no history to supersede me. Nobody else with this memory. There is no offspring that will treasure and unwrap carefully each note. There will be no mysticism and wonder when the box is found, dusted off, opened. It will simply be a box of letters. Paper that is easily burned. If I die in the winter maybe they will be used to keep someone warm. Letters that started with politeness and moved to forgiveness that ended in love. They will shine in colours from ink used and then dance as a bright flame until they diminish. They will end as grey ash.
I have a daydream hope that the wind might take whatever remains and hurtle it upwards to the sky on a simple whim. A wisp of words set free. Maybe that is how I will be, too. Windswept and dancing. A grey plume ascending into the clouds. A collection of moments forever lost. A ghost no longer contained in the thin folds of a page.
Lily Ogden originally from England now resides in the wilds of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. She has always had an appreciation for the small hitherto unnoticed things which have always inspired her creativity. She is an artist and writer, currently editing her first novel about two crows.
Tins of postcards, a pressed flower, a small shell.
I have a box of letters from my father. I didn't meet him until I was 25 and then we wrote, became awkward penfriends. He was only visiting at the time and was living in another country. We were not close enough to share long walks and estranged silences. There was a feeling that an effort should be made. An attempt at familiarity. It was too late for childhood so we tried to share as grownups. Neither of us wanted missed opportunities. And so we wrote.
The beginning letters are polite and straight forward and there is never any mention of regret. I know that my letters to him started with “Dear Henry” and in the space of just a few months I was writing “Dear Dad.” He is dead now. Unfortunately our relationship never reached the warmth that was promised in correspondence. I am still haunted by that time that held so much expectation. The vague promises of a parent written with flourish on moth coloured paper.
When I die I have no history to supersede me. Nobody else with this memory. There is no offspring that will treasure and unwrap carefully each note. There will be no mysticism and wonder when the box is found, dusted off, opened. It will simply be a box of letters. Paper that is easily burned. If I die in the winter maybe they will be used to keep someone warm. Letters that started with politeness and moved to forgiveness that ended in love. They will shine in colours from ink used and then dance as a bright flame until they diminish. They will end as grey ash.
I have a daydream hope that the wind might take whatever remains and hurtle it upwards to the sky on a simple whim. A wisp of words set free. Maybe that is how I will be, too. Windswept and dancing. A grey plume ascending into the clouds. A collection of moments forever lost. A ghost no longer contained in the thin folds of a page.
Lily Ogden originally from England now resides in the wilds of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. She has always had an appreciation for the small hitherto unnoticed things which have always inspired her creativity. She is an artist and writer, currently editing her first novel about two crows.