Pen to paper: words that won’t be easily forgotten.
Letters and memories of the past alter the course of a young woman’s life.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, who lived only a short distance away from our family farm. My grandparents enjoyed spending time together and I enjoyed watching them teasing and being playful with each other. I could see the love between them and I enjoyed hearing about their relationship. My story in Christmas with Hot Apple Cider is based on the true story of my grandparents’ relationship, which was greatly impacted by the letters they wrote to each other.
Ironically, my grandfather in his later years became a postman and delivered the mail in the rural areas surrounding Sundridge, Ontario.
When we were children, my siblings and I would take turns in the summer months helping my grandfather deliver the mail in his old classic Jeep. My favourite mail route to accompany my grandfather on was the one out to Pevensey. On this route, my grandfather would tell me about how he and my grandmother had first lived out that way. His sister Elsie still lived along the route.
One day, while delivering the mail with him, I opened Aunt Elsie’s mailbox and found a big chocolate bar that she had left there for me. I still remember my eyes growing wide with anticipation of how that chocolate bar would taste.
Later that day, when my grandfather pulled into our family farmyard, the excitement of finding the chocolate bar hadn’t left me. I swung open the door and jumped out of the Jeep while the vehicle was still in motion. I think I gave my grandfather a pretty good scare, but on that day I realized firsthand how something special in a mailbox could bring joy and excitement.
Perhaps my grandparents experienced that same joy with each letter they received from each other. Letters filled with promises, hopes, and dreams.
Sometimes I’m a little saddened that I don’t have a box filled with love letters from my sweetheart. Mine are all in e-mails and text messages. There’s something special and romantic about someone’s hands spilling words of love in their own hand writing over the pages of paper, forever immortalizing their love in a way it can be shared with future generations.
Of course, letters can bring great sorrow as well as joy.
But even more important, letters are an important part of preserving our past and helping us gain understanding of our ancestors’ lives. I wrote the story for this book to help preserve some of my family history, but also to remind readers how much letters were anticipated and loved by past generations.
Beverly DeWit is a freelance writer and artist. Beverly’s devotions have appeared in Journey Devotional Magazine by Lifeway. While she has self-published some of her stories, others have appeared in Hot Apple Cider with Cinnamon, church publications, medical journals, medical newsletters, and on blogs and websites. She is also a women’s ministry leader who enjoys speaking to women and assisting her husband, a senior pastor. Beverly enjoys researching family history to produce works of historical fiction.
“The Letters” is a beautiful story. I first read it when I received my copies of the book but, still, I had tears in my eyes as I now read it again. The purity of the main characters I find appealing. When it comes to stories, I read more fiction than non-fiction, but this true story has no dust on it (except, perhaps, a little prairie dust that I didn’t notice). It is historically anchored, but, thanks to the writer’s talent, I experienced it as being now.