Japan Personal Portrait

Grandma’s Love Letters

September 15, 2013

Before I left Japan, I had the chance to visit my 94-year-old grandpa a few times at his nursing home. During one visit, he said to me, “I have Grandma’s love letters still. They’re somewhere in this room.”

After a quick search, I finally found them tucked away carefully in an old shoebox. Letters penned decades ago by my late grandmother, kept preciously intact by my grandfather all these years. Tangible evidence of her love.

He pulled a few out and read snippets of them to me. After a few moments of reminiscing, I caught a slight twinkle in his eyes. Even in his old age, and even though it’s been 8 years since she passed away, it was clear he still has a sweet love for her.

With his frail, aging hands, he gently folded the letters back up, and I helped place them back in their envelopes and back into the shoebox. A feeling of sentimental warmth lingered in the air.

There was also a red-check-patterned paper nestled with the letters. He told me it was the pattern of the kimono my grandmother was wearing when he first met her.

I guess it was a little like love at first sight–at least for my grandpa. My mom says Grandpa first saw Grandma in a local park one day. After that, he made it a point to go to the park every day so he could keep crossing paths with her. A few encounters later, he finally said to her, “My, we do run into each other often, don’t we?” And the rest is history.

Grandma's Letters 1Grandma's Letters 2Grandma's Letters 3Grandma's Letters 4Grandma's Letters 5Grandma's Letters 6

I was also able to snag shots of a few old photos of when my grandparents were younger (including when my grandpa still had hair!)
AsahikawaAugust_0022_diptych
AsahikawaAugust_0035_diptychAsahikawaAugust_0033_diptych

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