Crónicas: On sentimentality

The following is a piece of advice from Mary Schmich's "Wear Sunscreen" speech: "Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements."

I don't have many old love letters. Perhaps my lovers weren't writers, or our relationship didn't spark inspiration. I have, however, kept my old letters. A birthday card from my father – a book cover he designed, complete with jacket copy that blurbs my life during COVID – hides in a large envelope which resealed in storage, the Southern California heat presumably softening the adhesive. I tear the flap as though I'm opening it for the first time. We haven't talked since last June.

Tonight, on the day of the year that hoards the greatest share of darkness, I can't find his mother's letters to my maternal grandmother. During my parents' divorce and the years-long aftermath, my grandmothers kept in touch, trading photos and intel about me and my sister. My maternal grandmother saved the letters she received, and gave them to me after my father’s mother passed away. On a longer, brighter day, her words will turn up. One line, however, I know by heart: "If there is a God, I will see them again."