The love letters

In the months before he committed suicide, my grandfather destroyed all the letters he and Margo had written to each other during their long engagement and his five years as a POW in Germany. But I did find two small handmade cards in the drawer of their nightstand.

The first, in Margo's large, round handwriting simply says: "A good feast day and a big kiss. Margot." On the opposite page, the artist who drew the card wrote a few verses from Musset:

"Do not believe that my heart

Could ever forget you

It could cease beating

But never stop loving you."

The other card is a small rectangle of Bristol paper. Someone - perhaps Jean or one of his fellow POWs - painted a Lily-of-the-valley (Margo's favorite flower, which she grew outside the kitchen door) and a small pink flower. The other side is covered in Jean's tiny scrawl:

"My dear, I am sending you this small card for the birthday of our little Monique and for yours as well, in memory of the Lily-of -the-valley I was able to give you in years past on May 1st. Best wishes and tender kisses. Yours. Jean."

And below a thin line:

"Big kisses to Monique on her special day. I hope that she will like the card from her dad."

I wonder if the restrained tone of both cards had to do with the censors that read the mail between the POWs and their families. Or was it that my grandparents' formality extended to their private lives? They were never outwardly tender toward each other, except at the very end, when Margo lost her sight. Jean would hold her hand then, and do small things for her. And he did mourn her for sixteen long months before deciding to take his life.

"She was such a good woman" he kept repeating the days following the funeral. "Such a good woman." As if he'd just come to the realization.