Gallant Manners | Raising Jane

Karina’s Valentine’s Day gift came early this year when her boyfriend, Adam, asked her out for a nice dinner, followed by a movie in downtown Moscow at one of our historic, renovated movie theaters.

When they arrived at the restaurant, the hostess seated them at a quaint little table for two. Soon after, their waiter came with a bouquet of flowers for Karina and set them on the table. They ordered their food, enjoying every bite and morsel of conversation. (Ah, young love.)

After dinner, they parked across the street from the movie theatre and walked through the doors. There were a few people at the front selling drinks. One gentlemen told them that they were the only people who had shown up for the movie so far (not uncommon in our little town). He followed up by saying he would get it started right away. They sat down near the middle of the theater. The lights dimmed and up popped a picture of …

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Love letters …

Feel your heart rate quicken?

Who doesn’t love the prospect of a good love letter?

There’s a little something seductive about them,

and I’m not just talking about scented stationery and wistful words.

Love letters have a timeless quality, luring our imaginations through the pages of history like no textbook ever could, preserving memories for generations.

When my parents were finally tucked into their graves, we discovered a secret box my mother had kept in a cedar chest in our basement that contained every love letter, note and card my parents had ever given each other, some of them dated before they’d married. The letters my father had mailed back home while he was away at war made it seem like my parents were the stars of a movie we’d discovered for the first time.

You can imagine the thrill of an elderly California couple who were recently reunited with their own long-lost love letters after 40 years.

High school sweethearts Lloyd and Marian Michael married on Dec. 31, 1942, only to be separated shortly thereafter when Lloyd joined the Army Air Corps to serve as a mechanic in Europe during World War II.

Image courtesy of Graphicsfairy.blogspot.com

“I just lived for the day when the postman would bring a letter,” Marian said. “You know, it was the only way we communicated. The only way we had any touch with each other.”

(There’s that tingle again.)

Eventually, the couple accumulated a steamer trunk full of missives and memories that they treasured for 30 years of their marriage until their home was robbed, and the trunk of letters was stolen.

“We were devastated to think someone would steal our love letters and probably throw them to the wind,” Marian remembers.

The couple had long given up their letters for lost when Lloyd received a phone call from a stranger, a fellow veteran who had tracked him down through the military. Although he apparently had no connection to the robbery, the man had the Michaels’ letters in his possession and was compelled to help them find their way home.

“And they came home,” Lloyd said.

Just in time for the couple’s 70th wedding anniversary.

Makes you want to spritz a pretty piece of paper and start penning your heart out, doesn’t it?