Mail From Home

 Mail can come in many different forms, whether that’s a letter, an advertisement, a magazine, a postcard, or a package. Some mail is thrown out immediately. Other mail is kept forever. The mail I’ve been keeping forever was from my mom. 

One summer when I was little, I spent two months in China with my younger brother and grandparents. My dad was off on a business trip and my mom had stayed back to work on her dissertation. We had been to China before and my grandparents had visited us for long stretches of time before, but we had never been without our parents for so long. 

We were a little scared at first, but after the jetlag wore off, our excitement skyrocketed. Everyday was just fun. Our grandparents spoiled us. We would watch TV, go out to eat, go shopping, go for walks, and swim. This is when my grandpa taught me how to swim. I remember asking to go every day after dinner. My brother and I would beg his ears off. Most days he would agree, and we would all walk over to the pool. When we got there, he would always enter the men’s bathroom, check for people, and come back out to get me so that my young little self wouldn’t have to go alone through the locker rooms. My small little self wasn’t ready to be alone. He would usher me into a changing room stall so that I could get my swimsuit on, and then he would make sure the coast was clear before I made a mad dash for the pool. Once we all successfully made it to the pool, my grandpa would give us impromptu swim lessons. My brother and I would hold onto the edge of the pool wall while we kicked and splashed trying to mimic his movements correctly. We slowly made progress over the summer. At the end of each pool day, we would repeat the locker room maneuvering so I could shower and use the same soaps as my grandpa and brother. Experiences like these brought my brother and I closer to our grandparents. 

A few weeks in, I spoke English to someone and I felt my brain instantly clear. It felt lighter and English was so easy for me to communicate with. I hadn’t realized how much brainpower speaking another language took. We were speaking a second language, which was relatively easy for us because it had been spoken around us since we were born. But it had never been spoken so much or for so long. Although we were still having fun, homesickness was setting in because we were in a new world without the people we had seen every day for our whole lives. Our feelings of missing home would fluctuate in the coming weeks. 

Then we received our first package. It was a folder of various things. There were two letters from my mom; one for my brother and one for me. Reading my letter felt like being hugged. I could hear my mom’s voice and felt comforted. When we looked deeper, we also found pictures of our dogs and two matching cross necklaces. My brother and I each took one, and we wore them every day to stay close to our mom. We broke them several times, probably because we never took them off, whether we were swimming, sleeping, or just breathing. When we told my mom, she sent us another. They were cheap pieces of costume jewelry, but they meant the world to us. I don’t know if that’s why, but I’ve always loved matching and still do. Although much of mail nowadays is trash people are annoyed by, some mail is quite the opposite. I still have all of the letters from that summer, and it’s taught me the power of taking the time to write to people. Thus, I try to handwrite letters to my friends and family occasionally so they can feel the same love and comfort I once felt.