Life Letters

I recently learned that upon deployment to a war zone, many in the military will write a death letter to their loved ones, should they not make it out alive. I suppose this has been common practice for a long time, but having never been employed somewhere where "writing a death letter" was on the agenda for orientation, this is a new concept to me.

At first I thought about how terrible that must be, to try to encapsulate your last words on whatever scrap paper is around. Or even on beautiful stationary. Or on your iPad or laptop. What would I say? And to whom? I'd probably have thirty letters to various people. I'd probably go back and write notes in the margins, as I thought of more things to say. For some, my handwriting would likely start off tiny because I would have thought I'd have had more to say, but then the writing would grow larger as I realized that I wouldn't be able to fill the whole page. And filling the whole page is important.

For just a moment, I thought about the letter I'd write to my kids, but then I didn't want to think about that anymore. So I stopped thinking about it. Because I could. Because I work in an office, where my greatest threat is boredom. But then I started thinking about that letter again. Military families seem almost better prepared for death. I mean, I could drive into a tree on my way home from work, and there would be no letters to send to anyone. Of course, this all comes back to the fact that I (we) probably don't tell the people I (we) love all the reasons I (we) love them nearly enough. I suppose this doesn't have to take the form of a love letter, but, instead, maybe just writing more love letters to our friends and families and spouses and children is something that would be nice to do. (And maybe writing them when you are especially irritated or pissed off at someone would be a good time to remember why they are your friend or family or spouse or child.)

So if anyone wants to send me a "life" letter, I'm happy to receive it. Getting real mail is so precious these days. I promise to write back.