Letters from Home

Ever since I was a kid, I have been afraid of writing letters. Superstition at its best. The first letter I ever wrote when I was a kid, ( all by myself), was to my cousin Mark in Saudi Arabia. Shortly after that he was killed over there. For years I wouldn't even consider sending a letter, until my brother deployed to Iraq. I was scared that somehow the two actions were linked. I realize now how stupid that sounds, but fear and love are very, very powerful emotions that outrank reason. I finally forced myself to write to my brother. He came home safe, Thanks to God.
Mom has been writing to me ever since I moved away from home, and except for the first five or so letters, I think I have all of the rest of them. I wish more than anything that I would have kept them. I lost them somehow. Both the ignorance of my youth, and the shanty I lived in led to the loss. That was one of the most important times in my life, and my mother's. Those letters captured something that even a great memory couldn't glimpse at. It was also when 9-11-2001 took place. I will never forget that ever. The way the house I lived in smelled, my tiny room with hardwood floors, the hot September morning in Boise. My vagrant roommate running in to wake me up shouting, "Phelps wake up!!! They just bombed the pentagon!!!!!" The disbelief I felt when I watched the second plane fly into the second tower live on television. All of the events and aftermath that followed. I lost all of my mothers insights and observations from those tremendous events in our lives. Over the years my mother has continued to write to me. So much has changed and taken place it makes my world spin just to think about it. I have pieces of it captured in her letters. Someday my kids and grand kids will get to read them, and perhaps gain a special insight to our lives and our relationships. Even though we talk on the phone often, there is something immensely different and more personal about written word. News about the family and old friends, stories about my dad that reveal an unknown and unseen side of him. When I was lonely those letters connected me to my mother and family in a way that almost seemed to soothe my homesick heart. Letter writing truly is a lost art. I started this blog as an attempt to write to all who would wish to read my letters from home.