My best friend got sick at age 34 and died at age 36. This took place many years ago, and I remain astonished that she’s not here any longer and that I’m so much older now than she’ll ever be. She was unmarried and had no children so all I have left of her is my memory, a few photographs and some funny letters that she wrote me.
She could be described in many ways, but I knew her to be a compassionate person who had a wicked sense of humor. The one word to describe her remains “unafraid.” It’s the first word that comes into my mind every time I remember her, which I do every day. And it has propelled me over the years to keep going, to persevere in moments and situations where I haven’t been sure if I should just quit and go home.
I’ve been cleaning my house and purging it from all the stuff I’ve collected over the past decade or two, and I’ve come across some of the letters she wrote me after I finished up my first graduate degree. This was in a time before the widespread infections of cell-phones and emails and texting and voicemail, so communication was not instant. Practicing patience, and waiting by the mailbox and telephone were common.
Every week or so we’d exchanged letters, comic strips clipped out from the newspaper, gossip. Re-reading the letters made me sad that I won’t be able to see her again tomorrow – but the humor in the sentences made me smile and reminded me what a good friend she was.
And then I remembered, too, about a TED talk that I’d once seen, about an Indian entrepreneur who had found some of the letters that her late father had written her. Her name is Lakshmi Pratury and is the co-host of TEDIndia 2009, host of The INK Conference and founder of Ixoraa Media.
In her concise speech, Ms. Pratury talks about the art of letter-writing as a vanishing act, something that is no longer prevalent in the age of modern communications. It is worth listening to her speech and hear her speak of her father and share some of the things he wrote.
“Maybe we all need to leave our children with a value legacy, and not a financial one. A value for things with a personal touch — an autographed book, a soul-searching letter.” (Lakshmi Pratury)
So, I’m going to keep on saving these letters that my friend wrote to me, especially the very last one she wrote a couple of weeks before the end, lying in a hospital bed thousands of miles from home, dying of cancer. “You’re my family,” she wrote. “Don’t forget.”
Devi Laskar is a founding member of the Book Writing World. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, an M.A. in South Asian Studies from the University of Illinois, is a rabid Tar Heel basketball fan and is working on a couple of novels.
Devi, What a devastating, inspiring, wonderful piece of writing you’ve done here. Thank you.