Return to Sender

 

It showed up in today’s mail.  It was a letter I had sent to someone a long time ago.  Apparently, it never reached them.  Where it has been all these years I haven’t a clue, but I know the person has since passed away.

They died without ever knowing what, at the time, had been so important, that I wrote it all down, sealed it and mailed it off to them.

Was I too slow in mailing it, or did the delivery system simply fail in their task?  I doubt the information in this letter would have altered their time here on Earth, but it may have prompted them to call me.  We might have had one more conversation, one more laugh.

Yes, I know you’re right.  I could have called them.  The thing is, I’m a writer.  On paper, I can take my time, choose my words and think without having to respond right away to, whatever it was they just said.  My conversational skills are better understood when they are in ink and not spoken out into the atmosphere.

I thought you knew that about me.  Anyway, now I have this letter back.  I will tuck it away with all hope of any future communication with them.  I will remember them as they were and stop imagining them writing back to me.