Letters
Among my most treasured items is a packet of letters, Christmas cards and birthday cards from my Grandma Shimeta. The envelopes and letters are tied together with a ribbon. They represent my communication with my Grandma from my college years until I was married. There in her shaky penmanship she tells me about her garden, fruit trees in her yard, my cousins, aunts and uncles, her neighbors, which people stopped by her house for a visit and stayed for dinner and what she would be doing for any given holiday. Her word usage and verb conjugations are, if nothing else, creative as English was her sixth language and she only had an eighth grade education. Yet, as I read them I can see her sitting at her kitchen table writing, smell the food she may have cooked for lunch or dinner and imagine being in her presence or staying in her warm, inviting home. Those pieces of paper, my Grandma’s letters, are my history with her. Letters……hand written letters ...