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"We carry our children until they learn to fly. And if we can give them our memories,
our thoughts, our hearts, we are all the better for it."
So ended a blogpost I wrote back in 2018 about a book of letters we privately published entitled Eighteen Letters from a father to a daughter by Joe Garrett. (It was one of the first blogs I wrote for Modern Memoirs; you can read the post here.)
A gift for Garrett's daughter upon her graduation from high school in 2010, this hardbound book contains each letter he wrote on her birthday since the year she was born. Until the book was published, she'd never seen the letters; he just threw them into a drawer for safekeeping during those years.
This was a memorable project to work on, to see and feel the almost palpable love written into each letter to a child who wouldn't even read it for decades. And to witness the wisdom and forethought of this father to set in print not only his memories of her, but his philosophical thoughts, political observations, favorite songs, history lessons, famous leaders' speeches, poems, current events, literature, and much, much more. When the book was finished and delivered, Garrett wrote to us the words I've never forgotten:
Thank you for the magic with which you turned a pile of letters into a real book.
This is where the story takes another turn. Garrett called me the other day to say that after 15 years, he'd finally sat down and read the 190-page book, cover to cover. This didn't much surprise me! I've learned in my 20 years here that many of our authors, once finished with a book, simply cannot take one more look at it after all the sweat that went into it. It's a big job after all, and when it's done, it's done. Even with our founder Kitty Axelson-Berry's own memoir, the newly delivered boxes sat in the office for at least three months before she took them home and began to hand them out! I'm not sure she's read it through.
Along with the delight that Garrett described in reading his letters and memories, he went on to say that his daughter now has a child of her own who just turned two. When on a recent visit to see them, he read aloud the letter he'd written when his daughter was two, full of details about her behavior, her favorite toys, her unintelligible language. The letter starts out:
Happy 2nd birthday! I wonder how old you will be when you finally come across this. Will you be in your teens, smirking at everything I have to say, or will you be in your 30s…deciding that I have great words of wisdom to pass on to you?
Garrett said he was surprised at the parallels in behavior between the two at the same age—his daughter and his granddaughter—and admitted he wouldn't have remembered those details or even found the original writings unless he'd made a book out of the letters.
I leave you with Garrett's words because I cannot say more about the solidity, beauty, and importance of having one's thoughts preserved in book form, in a book that lasts generations. He says it best:
You published Eighteen Letters in 2010, the collection of 18 letters I wrote to my daughter on each of her first 18 birthdays. I finally got around to reading it, 15 years after it came out, and it was the most wonderful and magical afternoon imaginable. I’m so glad it was a book and not just a scattered collection of letters. Thank you for all your help 15 years ago for making it happen.
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