THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412090515
SECTION: HAMPTON ROADS WOMAN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: MARY MAHONEY
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
RECENTLY I was in the attic doing the yearly chore of sorting through the Christmas decorations. I came upon a very large box that wasn't labeled. Thinking it may be a Christmas gift, I decided to peek. I found not my Christmas gift but something very special. The box was full of memories. It contained every card and letter Bill and I have written to one another during our 16 years of marriage.
I brought down all the Christmas decorations from the attic, and then decided that the letter box should come down, too. I knew then that my plans for decking the halls would be put on hold. (Bill is home this year. I will let him do the decorating!)
I sat on the floor in my family room and tried to make some order of the pile in front of me, but that never happened. Each time I picked up an envelope to sort, I began reading it instead.
The fifth envelope I picked up was the first letter I had ever written to Bill. It was dated Oct. 10, 1978, three days after Bill and I were married. I wrote to him from Pensacola, Fla. Bill was in Norfolk stationed aboard his first ship. I was at Corry Station awaiting my discharge from the Navy. ``Were we ever going to be together?'' Six months and what seemed like hundreds of letters later, we were reunited and began our life together - married and living under the same roof.
I sat for hours skimming through letters filled with words of love, loneliness and lots of poetry. I noticed that the postage was only 15 cents in the early years.
I recalled sitting each night writing to my sailor. I remembered how I would try to find different ways to tell Bill that I loved him. I wrote letters upside down, cut up and mailed like a puzzle, and in number code. I even wrote him a letter on toilet paper just to make it fun.
Although the box was overflowing, I recalled some letters written but never mailed. The letters filled with momentary anger for his not being home when the water heater blew up. The one I wrote yelling at him because the car battery died in the commissary parking lot.
Re-reading the letters I wrote during the early years of our marriage made me aware of just how much Bill and I have grown in our 16 years together. I was reminded of how proud I was when I put shocks on the car by myself. I recalled how lonely I felt when I had to take Chivon to the hospital for stitches alone.
Bill told me that during one cruise, friends of his who were not receiving mail from home wanted to read his letters. Everyone wants a little piece of home to carry around in his pocket.
On many nights, I complained to myself about having to write, trying to think of things to tell him that would make the letter longer. Home life remains pretty much the same when he is away. Bill has told me countless times that receiving mail is the highlight of the day when you are so far from those you love and think about. The length of the letter is not important. He just needed to know that his family was healthy and doing well.
Thousands of letters later, I am once again preparing for another Med cruise. In a few months, I will purchase another box of envelopes, number them and prepare to write each night this time with 32-cent postage. MEMO: Mary Mahoney writes a monthly column about military life. by CNB