Once upon a time, there was a book. Well, sort of. There was a book in a movie. Sex & The City was the movie in question and the book that wasn’t a book was used as a prop by Carrie, when she read aloud from Love Letters of Great Men.
Seems moviegoers went hunting for the book in bookstores, but there was no such thing. Not because great men didn’t write love letters, but because the book wasn’t real. But it is now. From Napoleon to Darwin to Beethoven, the passionate missives of some fascinating historical figures are now available for your musing and perusing. My favorite love letter, though, “I love you… I love you like guitars,” from John Lennon to his then-wife Cynthia, isn’t in there. But this letter from the collection is pretty damn fine:
Livy Darling,
Six years have gone by since I made my first great success in life and won you, and thirty years have passed since Providence made preparation for that happy success by sending you into the world… Let us look forward to the coming anniversaries, with their age and their gray hairs without fear and without depression, trusting and believing that the love we bear each other will be sufficient to make them blessed. So, with abounding affection for you and our babies, I hail this day that brings you the matronly grace and dignity of three decades!
Always Yours
S.L.C.”
S.L.C. – aka Mark Twain, to his wife, Olivia Langdon, on her thirtieth birthday
And hello, dear readers, I have five copies to give away! Would you like one? Sure you would – I think this book is adorable. Even if Carrie hadn’t used it in a film, I’d be curious about it. So, if you’d like a collection of manly heartfelt love letters of your own, leave a comment with your favorite love letter or romantic moment from your life, and I’ll select five winners to receive a copy. Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the books. And to Mark Twain for totally warming the cockles of my heart. Or vice versa.
Wait, you want my love letter entry? Heh.
Back in college, before Hubby and I were officially an item, I met up with him at a New Year’s party during winter break of our freshman year. Hubby and I met in high school, and most of our mutual friends were at this party. I have no clear memory of writing a letter to him after that night, but at some point, I wrote a long, rambly, probably incoherent letter about how much I liked him and was attracted to him, and then, I mailed it. Seriously, this is not like me. I have no idea when I mailed it. But I did.
Surprise, surprise, Hubby wrote back. I received a printed out letter from him in Chicago (not handwritten; I’d never have been able to read it) when I returned back to school in South Carolina the following week. And while I don’t remember the specifics of the first paragraph, he admitted he really liked me too, he had always been attracted to me, but since we were 1000 miles apart, there wasn’t anything we could do about it anyway. Then came the memorable, romantic part, when he wrote:
“In other news, I’m going to change fonts. It’s really cold here. Today it was -40F with the wind chill. I almost froze my dick off.”
Ahh. Romance with Hubby. Nothing like it under the sun, or inside the wind chill.
I loved it when I got an illustrated booklet (the guy I was dating was very talented in my eyes) with the words to Lionel Richie’s song that I’ve just brain-farted. OMG, it was the blind artist lady in the video that sculpted his face…
Anyway, it was the first time C. said “I love you” to me. He left it in the windshield of my car. I kept it for quite a few years before I started to think the DH wouldn’t like me to keep love letters from someone else around.
Sam
My favorite (again, no romance in my life) is from Kushiel’s Justice. I love the mix of romantic and snarky and “I can’t write one of THOSE letters” within it. Sidonie rocks.
“Dear Imriel,
You may laugh if you like, but I have wasted several costly sheets of paper trying to find the words to write to you in a manner befitting the correspondence of Remuel L’Oragen and Claire LeDoux. Like as not, I would still be trying if Amarante had not finally observed with some asperity that I have never been given to poetic sentimentality, and there is no reason to suppose that would change just because I miss you. I do believe I was beginning to irk her, which is no small feat.
So if you are expecting a paean celebrating everything from the drowning-pools of your eyes to the sinewed arches of your feet, lingering over the veined glory of love’s throbbing scepter, you will be disappointed.
But I do miss you, and it is an ache that never goes away. Life continues, day by day. I pretend to be someone I am not, wearing myself like a mask, stretched over the aching void that is your absence in my life. I miss you. Waking, sleeping, eating, riding, talking, breathing: I miss you. It is a simple, constant fact of my existence. The fact that I hate and resent it makes not the slightest difference at all.
I miss you.”
Naturally, Imriel starts laughing and crying at the same time.
About 7 years ago, my now-husband and I had just started dating. We liked each other a lot, but hadn’t said the big “I love you” words yet.
At the time, I had a part time job tutoring a boy in third grade. I could see that said boy was getting bored during one session, so I suggested we take a break and do some drawing. I took out a regular sheet of lined paper and drew the only thing I knew how to draw (the kid was a much better artist then I was) a bouquet of wild flowers with ribbons streaming down. I didn’t want to write anything overly mushy yet, so I just wrote “you are lovely” in fancy script because it was true and he’s still one of the sweetest lovliest people I’ve ever known. Then I decorated it with colored pencils, which my tutee was kind enough to loan me.
The romantic thing is that my husband insists on keeping said card and refuses to throw it out. It holds a place of honor on the dresser (well, under the dirty socks anyways)
The very first time my husband said “I love you” to me was in a card. It was a blank note card with an alien on the front, and on the inside, he wrote, “Love ya, babe.”
It might not seem all that romantic, but coming from a then twenty-year-old who insisted he didn’t want a serious girlfriend, it was very heartwarming.
My romantic story comes from my grandparents.
When my grandma was at Swedish nursing school my grandfather dated one of her roommates. My grandpa and the roommate did not work out, and my grandparents hadn’t seen each other in awhile. Then one day, my grandma was walking through a hall on campus. It had a very high ceiling and she heard this voice from above. “Carol Aagard, will you go out with me?” She looks up and it’s my grandpa up on a ladder doing some cleaning. It’s so cute and so my grandpa. They went on a date not soon after and a few years ago they celebrated their 50th anniversary. Relationships like theirs make my search feel like it’s worth it.
Oh, these are wonderful stories! I’ve already teared up a couple times. Although, admittedly, I cry at Iams commercials.
Speaking of dogs… My musician sweetie of some 13 years has written songs to his old bass player and his terrible family, meth addicts and Bedouins. I have never gotten a song.
He did however write a song for our dog, Hannah. It goes, in part:
Love is born with a lick of face
A love that sighs
A love that heals
A clean water dish to seal the deal
You can come
And you can stay
A wagging tail to show the way
My secret is that I picked him ‘cuz of Hannah-dog.
Heather’s story reminded me of a time my youngest daughter and I were really bored, so I kidnapped her, and sent her down to her father with a ransom note, saying she wouldn’t be returned unless he paid some extortionate sum – 80p, or something. He duly paid up, and we split the proceeds.
When we came back downstairs he asked her to describe her kidnapper, and she – ungrateful brat – described me.
But – and this is the romantic part – he told her I couldn’t have been involved, because I’d been with him all the time. Love is a convincing alibi.
Take the way back machine to my college years. My anthro T.A. and I started dating AFTER the semester ended. He had to leave shortly after we got together to go visit his mom and dad in Cameroon and then his sister in Paris. I used to receive sexy love-letters on airmail stationary describing the night sky in Africa and how wonderful it would be to be together there.
He ended up cutting his holiday short and left Paris- LEFT PARIS EFFING FRANCE- early to come back because he missed me.
*sigh*
I remember reading a love letter from Napoleon to Josephine, where he talked about loving her “wind” which I thought was fairly fantastic. Talk about loving someone despite themselves.
My most romantic moment wasn’t a letter, although that was lovely. It was when my girlfriend decided she had to propose before she left. We’re long distancing it and she was going to wait until I went to visit her for New Year’s. She was in for the week and she was taking me out for dinner. I was about half ready and ironing her shirt for her. She said she walked into the bedroom and saw that – just me ironing something for her – and it was a perfect moment. She said it was such a simple act of caring that she knew before she left she would propose to me.
And, from my love letter to her:
“I love you with more than I thought possible. I love that we’re relearning each other. I love sleeping with you and waking with you. I want years and years and children and sickness and health with you. Mostly, though, I just love you. Trwy’r amser eiddoch, fy nghariad.”
My ex was very good at romantic gestures; alas, he wasn’t nearly as good at the mundane day-to-day basics, which is a large reason why he’s my ex.
My husband doesn’t do romantic gestures; it’s not his style. He fixes my car, buys groceries, currently stays at home to care for our son while we’re waiting for a daycare slot to open, helps care for my ex’s and my autistic son, and generally makes himself indispensable. I’d rather have that than love letters.
I wrote him a poem for Valentine’s a couple years ago for the heck of it, though:
In Response to Omar
Perhaps some chips and salsa, not the bread;
Unless they’ve made a fresh batch at the store,
and if the butter’s soft enough to spread.
Some chicken wrapped in corn tortillas, or
Some fries, some cheese, a bowl of soup;
A piece of toast. A salad would suffice;
Or I could cook some of that ugly goop
from greens and peanut butter. Water, ice;
A glass of beer—the good stuff, not the lite;
Perhaps agave lime beer for a change;
Or cola, tea, or even, red or white,
That wine; a common meal, or one that’s strange:
I’ll take whatever’s on the table now—
But always thou, and thou, and ever thou.
My fave love letter is the one my husand wrote on a sticky note because he’d forgotten to get me a birthday card. He can’t draw and his handwriting is mostly illegible. It’s precious and I keep it always in plain view.
Le sigh.
My fella isn’t one for words. I know he loves me by the way he smiles when I walk in a room, and how he holds my hand. When we first met, I slipped on a curb and he caught me. Our first kiss was at the base of a glowing Washington Arch when he pulled me into him like a dancer, bending back in a pas de duex.
But I write. And for Valentine’s Day, a month exactly after our first date, I gave him this:
We walked halfway to Brooklyn,
You and I.
High above the East River,
I clung to your hand
And tried not to look down
As the wind stung our cheeks.
Instead, I turned to the right and saw
The masts of ships they use for tourists now –
Black against a sky of sherbet-cold colors –
And thought about what it was like when this city,
Your city,
Huddled close to the edge of the island
And everyone spoke Dutch.
On the way back,
My hands were so cold
They hurt.
I should have put them in my pockets,
I know,
But I wanted to feel them cradled in yours.
You peeled my gloves off and held my
Frozen white fingers to your mouth,
Warming them with your breath.
When we got home,
Your coat crackled
With static electricity
As you slid out of it,
And I changed my shoes.
This is a love poem.
Carry it between the folds of your shirt.
Press it into your fingers and the tip of your tongue.
Hold me in your arms
And I will write it in the creases of your palm.
always61 – I will be crazy about this man now, at age 61, and long after.
A couple of years ago my then-boyfriend Paul sent me a text which read “NU play 2nite, mind I where shirt?” [trans: Newcastle United are playing tonight, do you mind if I wear my jersey to dinner?”]. For Paul, missing a Newcastle game was a big deal, but he was taking me out for my birthday. I thought that was a very romantic gesture on his part.
I let him wear the shirt by the way – to a very nice restaurant.
As we were watching Juno, and J.K. Simmons is delivering the line about how the “right person will think that the sun shines out your a$$,” I turned to my husband and asked, “So, does the sun shine out of mine?”
His reply? “It lights up my world.”
Yeah, I’m gonna keep him.
We had been married less than 6 months, I was living and working in Big City to pay the bills, he was slogging through his last year in college 120 miles away. I had driven back from a too-short weekend with him, and had decided to have a quick bowl of granola before bed. Whoops…those “hunger pangs” turned out to be the early stages of a wicked bout of stomach flu.
I called him at midnight, crying and miserable and completely out of toilet paper. He got out of bed, drove 120 miles, hit the all-night grocery down the road to pick up TP, saltines, Mylanta, and a new toothbrush for me…and then sat up while I continued to barf my guts out.
Almost 10 years later, I remember that night more than all the cards and flowers and gifts that have come since.
I have a couple of moments—
I met my husband in Junior College, while we were both working at McD’s, and our courtship was, for one reason or another, bumpy. Case in point? I almost got fired on Valentines Day, because, although I had a temperature of 103, (for which I called in sick) I still made Mate cookies—and gave them to him at work. (I was 19—we’re always insane when we’re 19.) The manager saw me and thought I’d been faking being sick and it was a big mess and I barely kept my shitty job.
The next day, he broke up with me. It seems that sort of commitment on my part made him want to wet his pants.
Eventually, we got back together, and after an extremely wonderful date—the kind where you start out going to the movies in Sacramento and end up going to the Ocean in Carmel—he dropped me off at home with the following words. Considering how articulate he WASN’T, it was probably the coolest line ever:
I keep seeing these T-Shirts for Baskin-Robbins—you know, ‘So many chocolates, so little time’? I sort of feel that way about girls. But I really only think I want one kind of girl. I’m pretty sure I only want you.
And finally, after we did get together, I went off to school in the Bay Area. It only lasted a year before we moved in together, but for two semesters of school, I wrote him a letter every night before I went to bed and sent it off in the morning. After our second move together (by then we were married) I was moving these two shoeboxes and wondering what the hell was in them. It was my my letters—he’d saved every damned one.
As part of a middle school reading assignment, my son and I were both required to read a Mark Twain book. Upon telling my father about this school project my father sent me a copy of Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth. In his note he writes … “If I may, I would give you the first and last pages from the pages from the “The Diary of Adam and Eve”. These are the sweetest and dearest words I have ever read and apply to the way I feel about your Mother, although I do not say so.”
THE DAIRY OF ADAM AND EVE
Part 1 – Monday – This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around following me about. I don’t like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals….. Cloudy to-day, wind in the east; think we shall have rain…. We? Where did I get that word? I remember now – the new creature uses it.
Sometime after ” The Year of the World” 920
Forty years later, “after the fall”
It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together – a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have a place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.
But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me – life without him wound not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer is also immortal, and will not not cease from being offered up while my race continues. I am the wife and in the last wife I shall be repeated.
At Eve’s Grave
ADAM: Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.
My parents celebrated 50 years of marriage on November 22nd. They are a wonderful example of what true and enduring love is.
My boyfriend and I were in school, living apart and dirt poor. Valentine’s Day rolled around, and I gave him the all-clear to skip a gift to save money.
On the 14th, I came home after a rough day in class and found my bedroom walls covered— floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall—with post-it notes. They each had a different message of love for me, written in my BF’s hand.
I dropped my backpack and cried. When I finally took them down a month later, I carefully stacked them up and put them in that shoebox that all women have for such things.
I still have the stack of notes, as well as the man who wrote them.
This isn’t really from a letter but it is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve witnessed in my life:
My Grandmother and Grandfather were a very proper, very southern couple who married in 1927. Mama Harben never uttered a harsh word against a soul and could make the best biscuits of anyone I knew. Papa Harben was what we called a ‘gentleman farmer’ and would have had a heart-attack to witness the manners of some of the men I’ve dated. This small town couple shared a deep, strong love that lasted over 53 years, Alzheimer’s disease, and countless pans of biscuits. As grandchildren, we knew they loved each other. However, we never knew they still held a playful, almost adolescent flame for each other until one memorable morning.
We were gathering together for breakfast one lazy morning, the kind that only Southerners can truly appreciate – one entailing lots of gravy and lots of biscuits. Mama Harben kept making trips from the kitchen to the table, each time bringing in another plate of bacon, eggs, or gravy and each time she had to pass right behind Papa Harben’s chair. After one pass when she laid down a particularly mouth-watering plate of feather-light biscuits, Papa Harben reached out and playfully swatted Mama Harben on the behind and with the most self-satisfied smile said “That’s mine.†Mama Harben’s reaction was even more shocking: her cheeks reddened ever so slightly and smiling coquettishly in Papa Harben’s direction sighed something like “Oh, Silvey†and continued to bring more delicious food to the table.
We all sat in stunned silence as Papa Harben, grinning, tucked into his breakfast and Mama Harben settled herself at the table with a sigh. Giving each other wide-eyed looks we slowly resumed our breakfast but I don’t think any of us ever forgot that simple gesture of love inspired by a pan of biscuits.
Grandma always told me to remember that canned biscuits have resulted in many a failed marriage over the years.
I definitely love the letter to Anne from Captain Wentworth in Persuasion.
But, my vote is for the song “Something” which George Harrison wrote for his then wife Patti Boyd. (For a musician, I reckon this is a love letter).
Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover…
….
Somewhere in the way she knows
And all I have to do is think of her….
He also wrote “Here Comes the Sun” in his best mate Eric Clapton’s garden and then of course Eric fell hopelessly in love with Patti and wrote his classic “Leila” for her. Apparently he pursued her relentlessly until she gave in and left George for Eric…
There must have been something about that lady because she inspired some amazing music from some very talented musicians. I think Eric Clapton still describes Patti as “the love of his life”.
Should have been a romance novel huh?
Well, it’s not a love letter, but I do believe in my heart of hearts that 50 cent’s lyric “I love you like a fat kid loves cake” will stand the test of time. Although that might just reflect how much I like cake . . . . yum.
My partner and I reconnected as lovers after 20 years of staying friends via airmail, and then we had several years of romance that was almost exclusively by e-mail before we were able to arrange to live on the same side of the Atlantic. One of the sweetest gestures he ever made was to save every one of those e-mail messages (some over very primitive servers and systems in the early days) and edit them into a readable, searchable archive. I had every intention of going through that for one the (many) romantic passages, but the love story I can’t seem to get out of my head right now is my parents’. Here’s why.
They just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary (which, yes, makes me 49). A few weeks before, Dad was diagnosed with advanced stage prostate cancer. We down-sized the party to “just” immediate family (my siblings and our kids and partners, about 25 in all) and went ahead with the celebration, hoping he’d be well enough to enjoy it. He was, and he told this story: “I first met your mother during our freshman year of college, at the urging of my good friend Jim, who was our best man three years later. He said that as we were the only two intellectual Catholics he knew, we had better get together and have amazing children. Fifty years and more later, I have to say he was right—just look at you.”
Fifty years of marriage, six kids, twelve grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and counting. As they sing in Fiddler On the Roof, “if that’s not love, what is?”
Oh, can I also add another song?
It’s called “Love Letter” and it’s by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
The lyrics are:-
I hold this letter in my hand
A plea, a petition, a kind of prayer
I hope it does as I have planned
Losing her again is more than I can bear
I kiss the cold, white envelope
I press my lips against her name
Two hundred words. We live in hope
The sky hangs heavy with rain
Love Letter Love Letter
Go get her Go get her
Love Letter Love Letter
Go tell her Go tell her
A wicked wind whips up the hill
A handful of hopeful words
I love her and I always will
The sky is ready to burst
Said something I did not mean to say
Said something I did not mean to say
Said something I did not mean to say
It all came out the wrong way
Love Letter Love letter
Go get her Go get her
Love Letter Love letter
Go tell her Go tell her
Rain your kisses down upon me
Rain your kisses down in storms
And for all who’ll come before me
In your slowly fading forms
I’m going out of my mind
Will leave me standing in
The rain with a letter and a prayer
Whispered on the wind
Come back to me
Come back to me
O baby please come back to me
Great song….
My husband and I recently had to go out of town. We were at our destination in southern Florida and got into the elevator at the airport. There was a lovely older woman already in the elevator and she had on the most beautiful gold necklace with a yellow topaz in the middle. I commented on her necklace and she gave me a beautiful smile. She said it was a gift from her husband. That they had met in 1943 in Germany, fallen in love, but were separated due to the war. They found one another again in Florida sixty years later and had immediately married. Our short elevator ride ended, and she continued on her way. My husband squeezed my hand and we both had tears in our eyes. I told my husband that I wished I knew the whole story. He said it was only important that it had a happy ending, like we had.
He can still make me melt after almost 34 years.
No love letters, but maybe if I won the volume I could start practicing.
And here’s a related book recommendation: “Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar”—it is a very nice collection of readings on marriage.
My life has been sadly short on the romantic department.
I like Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. It’s sweet, and believed to be written about his wife that died…just forget the part that she was his 13 year old cousin. Ew.
My boyfriend’s not the type to send me love letters – a simple gesture such as a quick two second chat and hug in the hallway in between classes (we’re both in high school) was a sign of affection and good enough with me.
However, how he asked me to be his girlfriend is still fresh in my mind.
He had originally asked me to go to our school’s annual fall dance last year, but I had turned him down because I didn’t know him all that well. One year later, he asked again and I accepted; only he got himself grounded on the night of the dance and therefore we couldn’t go.
A week later, our school decided to pull a fast one and had a Sweetheart’s Week, where carnations, roses and chocolates were being sold. Boyfriend bought an entire vase full of red carnations (attaching a note with the qwuestion if I’d like to be his girlfriend) and presented them to me at the lunchtable while being entertained (and quite possibly distracted) by our mutual friends. When I saw the vase I burst into tears in front of everyone and was still crying a bit when I got to fifth period, struggling to carry a glass vase, a binder and two heavy textbooks.
It’s been two months since then – we’re still going pretty strong, even though our relationship is probably just more like a deep friendship.
There are a lot of touching (and often funny) love stories on here – I have several favorites, but it’ll take too long to list them all. 😀
I don’t have a love letter from my husband but I think I have one of the best romantic moments from him (several in fact). He proposed to me on the beach that we went for a walk on our first date after dinner. He blindfolded me and i fell asleep in the car on the way out, and I thought it was a bithday surprise, but no it was a proposa. He drew a huge heart around me in the sand with our intials in it and then he got down on one knee and proceeded to tell me that without me in his life there would be no joy and happiness, he would never find someone who is more of a perfect compliment to his personality and that he has never known a greater love than that of which he feels for me.
He then pulled out a box and asked me to marry him and to share the kind of life with him that many people seek thoughout their own lives and sometimes are left unfulfilled.
I said yes and we were married a year to the day later.
My now DH and I were on a plane to Ixtapa, Mexico from Cali. Somewhere over Cabo San Lucas (I’m guessing), he got up to go to the restroom while I filled out those mandatory disclosure papers for us. A flight attendant got on the PA and said my name, asking me to step into the aisle. Two other flight attendants were right behind my row. I looked at them expectantly but they didn’t say anything. I turned to the front of the plane, and there was my then bf on his knee. He then proceeded to tell me how much he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and asked me to marry him. I said yes and everyone on the plane started clapping and cheering, high-fiving him as he made his way down the aisle to me. I even saw some people filming him as he walked by. heh
The flight attendants opened up little bottles of champagne for everyone…I think that’s the only time I’ve never had to pay for alcohol on a plane.
le sigh! These are so great! Somewhere amongst my things is a small scrap of paper with the word “I like you. Do you like me too?” This was written by a German student I met when I spent some time attending a school in Germany. He was very smooth for a 16 yo. One day he even stopped playing futbol and stood in the middle of the pitch with the game going on around him to watch me walk by. sigh. To a girl waiting for her life to become a John Hughes movie, he couldn’t have done anything more romantic to win my 15 yo heart. I hope wherever he is, he is making some lucky woman feel as cherished as he did me all those years ago.
I went through my box of special mementos when I got home from work tonite, looking for the letter I wanted to share. I found it, and lots of others that have left me in a very contented mood. Thanks for giving me a reason to go looking! :o)
It was written to me in college my junior year, a complete surprise, and slid under my dorm room door. Of course, my room mate found it first. Harrumph. When I got home, she read it out loud to me. Tho I would have much preferred to have found it first and read it to myself, it was rather nice to hear it out loud. I won’t bore you with the entire thing, but it began, “You, dear, have a share in everything good that God does through me. You give to me without conditions or expectations. If I am becoming a stronger man, you certainly are partly responsible for that coming about.†And ended, “I am wealthy to have you in my life. I hope the very good things about you become constantly more apparent to you. I love you.â€
Of course, while looking through the box, I found another that has meant even more to me over the years. It’s actually a poem from one friend to another, but I still consider it a gift of love, so I’d like to share it. A year or so after graduation, I was living alone in The Big City. I knew next to no one, and was feeling incredibly invisible and unloved. On one of the loneliest days, I came home from a job I hated to my hovel of an apartment and found an envelope in my mailbox. Inside I found the following poem from my friend William:
I can’t tell you how much I needed to read that, and know that someone was thinking of me.
Diane :o)
One of the best love letters I’ve ever seen was sent to my sister in the first grade by another first grader. It read: “You are so sweat.”
I love Mark Twain’s love for his wife. He said that from the first day he saw her to her death, there was never a day when he was not in love with her. When he couldn’t see her (I think she was quarantined), he nailed love notes to the trees around their cottage. If you’ve seen the pic of Mark Twain as a young man, bare chested, you know that there was a man with sex appeal!
So far the most romantic note I received was a couple months ago.
My boyfriend and I are both in med school, and were sitting in the study hall next to each other. It was right before a test, so I was being particularly foxy in basketball shorts, an oversized t-shirt and a dirty ponytail. I got up to use the restroom and when I got back, he was still studying innocently and never looked up, but there was a post it on my book that said “A sexy girl sits here” with an arrow pointing at my seat.
Yeah, went all mushy. I’m usually not the type.
And over 100 comments, and none about James Joyce?
These stories are so lovely! I’ve stayed up far past my bedtime to read them all (and the kids don’t care what time I went to bed) 🙂
I can’t wait to see what other lovely stories show up tomorrow.
Thanks everyone!
My boyfriend once told me I was a miracle. (No, we were not in bed at the time). Later I asked him what kind of miracle. He said, “My miracle.”
I’ve been really curious about this love letter book. I wants it! Pretty please?
Just one more for my boyfriend. Recently we’ve been talking about getting married (which is a BIG step for him because his parents had the divorce from hell) and just last week he told me every day he spends with me makes him more convinced we’re going to work out and end up together. 🙂
From Jessica, who emailed me:
“My grandfather died when I was five. I don’t remember him much, just that he was strong and gruff and my granpa.
Ten years later, I was fifteen and my grandmother, whose eyesight was pretty bad by then, handed me a box of letters and asked me to type them up for her. They were, as you might have guessed, love letters from my grandpa to my grandma during their courtship before and during WWII. They were beautifully romantic, sometimes cliche, and there were at least a few words in each that I just could NOT decipher. But my favorite part of the whole process was getting to know my grandfather as a young man in love, heck, getting to know him at all.
I don’t have the letters anymore, typed or original, but I will always, always cherish (as corny a word as it is, it fits) being able to read them.”
-Jessica