Letters From the Past.....
Heart stone plucked from the shores of Cayuga Lake.
The other day, Sunday, we had a device free day and drove to one of our favorite walks - an amble through the Roy H. Park Preserve. It’s a muddy tromp along fields and a stream that leads into a small grove of aspen, then into deeper woods signaling you are drawing closer to the small gorge bordering the edge of the preserve. At this elevation, mild compared to other places, you are at the headwaters of Six Mile Creek, the watershed for much of the city of Ithaca. It’s a little surprising as you stand there by the water’s edge.
The Teen and the dog creekside.
If you can tear yourself away from the mesmerizing beauty of the water running over the flat shelves and turn around, you will see this:
Heart-shaped stones brought from everywhere by many.
It never ceases to amaze me, this simple gesture of who knows how many people, bringing their stones from all over - it’s a gift of love, of hope.
On our walk, we kept running into people we knew and would stop and chat, smiling in the sunshine while maintaining the appropriate distance. Surprising to me, none of them knew about the wall, so as we offered directions I felt like we were spreading a little magic.
When I started the handwriting project, I never dreamed that it would land me in the last few months of 1918 during the flu epidemic. Without the easy transmission of information we have today, a little over one hundred years later, tragic news was disseminated by letter.
As I read the letters, from a doctor in NY to his parents, from a father to his son about his sister’s death, the response of a mother to the news of her son’s passing, I can’t help but think of the burden these people carried. They were in the midst of a world war and then a virus descends upon them and claims the lives of the youngest and most vital. It’s clear that the changed patterns of wartime had a particular effect on the spread of the disease. The fact that it hit the 20-40 year olds particularly hard has been assigned to the virus triggering a “cytokine storm” - an overwhelming response by a healthy immune system that ravaged their bodies. The letters are heart-breaking as so many contracted the virus by nursing others.
One young man fighting in France wrote his girl back home in North Carolina.
Your sweet letter of the 18th was rec today and was so sorry to know that the flu was so bad at home. I wrote Mother last night and in my letter asked her if the flu had took hold there and today I got your letter telling me about it being so bad. So my girlie is helping the nurses attend to the victims. Gee, but I am proud of you, that’s a brave thing to do, risking taking the flu for someone else’s sake. It’s almost as risky as being in the front line. But dear do be careful or someone might have to nurse you.
As I think on this shutdown and the actions we are taking to thwart this new virus, it’s good to look back and consider previous generations’ challenges. I write this as my husband works across from the dining table and the Teen is working digitally with a group on a school project. The older child’s business is considered an essential part of the supply chain, so he has been going in. We are safely home, yet still employed and connected.
We are so lucky.
x Robin