A few days before I turned 19 I knew exactly how my life would be. Get engaged, married, have 2.2 children, swim at the country club and run the family restaurant. Well, I did get engaged on my 19th birthday to a very nice boy with a very nice diamond ring from Fortunoffs. We planned a very nice wedding, a honeymoon in Puerto Rico and ordered a copious number of invitations that were never mailed. Exactly what was I supposed to do now with the rest of my life?
Only one suitable decision - leave town and move to Los Angeles. "She'll be back in three months" seemed to be the general consensus among family and friends. I'm not certain I didn't disagree with them as I sat in a car with a friend awaiting our departure. It was all contingent on my father's final "OK" - in the form of an envelope of cash (entrusted to the friend, but more about my relationship with my father at some other time) and the guarantee that my little Triumph Spitfire would, indeed, be shipped.
As my mother - one of the kindest souls and neatest women I've ever known - stood next to the car with tears in her eyes she entrusted a large envelope of her own to me. Inside were all the response envelopes from the not-to-be-had wedding, addressed to the family home and stamped.
Her simple goodbye - "you have no excuse not to write".
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Emmy really had it together. Why waste all those stamps. Did you actually use them all? How many were there?
ReplyDeleteThe stamps were on because the invitations were going to be mailed in two weeks. They were all addressed. There were about 125, wedding about 250-275 people...eight bridesmaids.
ReplyDeleteI used some of them.