By Susan Mangan

When I was in eighth grade, a boy fancied me.  I am not sure what there was to fancy at the time - frizzy hair, glasses, mismatched socks. Nonetheless, his affection was made known not just to me, but to our entire class when he presented me with a corsage on Valentine’s Day.   This was not a demure corsage crafted of one or two pink tea roses, but an enormous, puffy, round white carnation dotted with a full-blown red rose in its center.  

There was no hiding his love for me. I have always been sensitive to the feelings of others, so I accepted this thoughtful token graciously and tried to stuff it in my desk.  He suggested that I pin it onto my Catholic school vest.  My vest was long and had pockets, so I thought I could get away with pinning it on the large pocket that draped just over my leg.  Here the flower would be hidden when I sat down and my dignity could remain in tact.  My courtier looked at me sheepishly as I was about to break his heart, and I buckled. I pinned that corsage right above my heart for all the school to see. As the final bell of the day rang at the three o’ clock hour, I issued the boy a “Dear John” letter thanking him for the valentine, but shattering any notion that he might have that we were an item. I still have a distaste for carnations and much prefer more subtle displays of love. Candy conversation hearts can be eaten and letters can be hidden.

I have always valued the written word, both in the metaphoric and literal sense. As I child, I tried to get my mother to stop smoking by hiding small notes with healthy mantras into the pockets of her nursing uniform, jeans, bathrobe, etc.  One note depicted a squirrel sitting in an ashtray surrounded by half-eaten walnuts, with the words “NUTS TO BUTTS” streaming from his mouth.  For me, these notes were concrete reminders of my concern and love for my mom.  Ultimately she did stop smoking and I like to think my written campaign was quite strategic.

When I was married, I realized that I wasn’t the only member of my family who enjoyed the art of letter writing.  For our first Christmas, my mother presented my husband and me with a large box filled with my childhood ornaments.  Each and every Snoopy, mouse, and angel had a note attached to it describing the sentiment behind the decoration: my birth, my first Christmas, my first trip to see Santa at the State Street Marshall Field’s store in downtown Chicago.  By the time I unwrapped each delicate tissue coated parcel, I was a wistful puddle of tears.  I still have all the notes in the box where I keep our ornaments. 

For most children, the seventh and eighth grade years are riddled with change and tides of emotions.  Tears of joy and disappointment are always too close to the surface, so it comes as no surprise when I heard strains of weeping coming from behind my daughter’s closed door.  Unaware of the grade of tsunami that lie behind that door, I opened it with trepidation.  There sat my daughter with stacks of baby photos and letters that I had written to her on the eve of her birthdays.  Her second birthday brought with it the birth of her baby brother.  I described how tender she was with him and my hopes that she would always love him as she does now.  I wrote of how she charmed both her grandfathers with her constant chatter and beautiful smile.  I described how she left the pew in mass one day and sat by a lonely nun and pointed to the nun’s prayer book and said, “God.” On that day, the walls between adolescence, childhood, and parenthood collapsed, while my daughter and I shared a good cry over love, the passing of innocence, and a few tattered pages of notebook paper.

Four years ago, when we spent the Christmas holiday in Ireland, my daughter sat outside on a clear, fine day and wrote these words: 
When I was a young girl I would walk outside to the wide open fields of Ireland.  I would think about the life at home I have.  The big cities, the wide roads, and all the cars.  Ireland made me appreciate the beauty of nature. I love seeing the wide open fields, Croagh Patrick’s peak in the distance and Buckagh hill in the silky clouds.  I like to think about my Grandma’s life in Ireland’s past and I could not think of any better Christmas. 

I have stashed away this notepad with my daughter’s words, so that I will always remember that with innocence comes great clarity and wisdom.
As I was preparing to write this February column, I went through the rituals that I always do: I poured a large cup of hazelnut coffee and filled a plate with sweets, sat by the computer, and read a bit of Yeats.  I thought about how indescribably romantic it was for Yeats to pen the words, “when you are old and grey and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read of the soft look your eyes had once and of their shadows deep.”  I thought of how he immortalized his unrequited love and muse Maud Gonne through his metaphors.  I thought of how important it is in this age of twitters and tweets to not let go of the past, of the handwritten word, of our sense of humanness in a technological age. 

Recently, my mother gave me a copy of a memoir written by her English cousin.   Born in the 1860’s, this cousin grew up in a large family in Mayfield, Sussex, England.  She later spent twenty years as a servant to English nobility until she finally settled down to a quiet married life in the village of Abergavenny, Wales where she lived for 61 more years.  The cousin ends her memoir fittingly in the year 1968, a year before I was born: “Sometimes it is good to step aside and feel the quiet peace which is there in the background or makeup of each one of us.”   Truly, a love letter indeed.

*Susan holds a Master’s Degree in English from John Carroll University and a Master’s Degree in Education from Baldwin-Wallace College.  She may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it