The Words of Mother and Dad

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adoptee, adoption, aging, Charlottesville, Dad, Diaries, Letters, Memory, Mortality, Sunset, Virginia, Wisdom, World War II

Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.
~Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal

Note to readers: Before Richard and Reva Beard adopted me, the bond between them intensified. With each year of courtship, marriage and — most of all — through their World War II separation, they imagined the family they would build. The war made that dream even stronger. Though separated by 6,000 miles and 18 months, they corresponded every day. The letters were relegated to a file case in my parents retirement home. After Dad passed away, I asked my brother to send me the entire collection. Daddy had meant to write a book about his India experiences, but life got in the way. I inherited the thousands of handwritten epistles, quit my day job to read every one, and turned the best of them them into a book: From Calcutta with Love- The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard. (Texas Tech University Press, 2002) The original missives were archived at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. In 2002, the Texas publisher gave me back the rights. Last year Pajarito Press in Los Alamos, New Mexico acquired them. I’m happy to announce that, eighty years after they were first written by mom and dad, the letters are again being presented to the world.

Richard and Reva, I’d like to believe, would be proud to share their words with the world.

If I could speak to Richard today,  I’d remind him of a certain conversation. When going through some of my old diaries, I found this entry:

 My father and I were walking around the gentle hills of Charlottesville, Virginia. I’d left Virginia for New Mexico, embarking on my own life, but I visited at least once or twice a year. He and my mother had moved to a senior community named “Stonehenge.” I found the title amusing, thinking it conjured up the wisdom of the ages. On this particular evening, I was out walking with the wisest man I knew.
    The sun was setting and mist arose from the earth. Instead of a blazing sunset like those I experienced in New Mexico, this “sky-scape” was layered in subtle pastels…pink, peach and gray.
    Though I don’t recall my exact words, I told my father that when I was 70, his age at the time, I wouldn’t mind dying. I would, I told him, be ready to leave the earth.
    “You’ll feel differently when you’re there,” he retorted. “You’ll want more years ahead of you. Many more years.” I wanted to disagree, but I knew that argument was futile. Daddy was strong minded.
    Life happened. Marriage, children, divorce, grandchildren. Suddenly I was the agemy father was when he made his pronouncement.
    He’d left years earlier, but I felt that at some mysterious psychic level, he could hear and understand me. “You were right,” I longed to tell him.

Join Elaine Pinkerton on alternate Mondays for reflections on the life through adoption colored glasses, hiking, reading books, and writing. The Hand of Ganesh, slated for mid-April publication, can be pre-ordered from Pocol Press. (Pull down the Books tab at the top of this page). Stay tuned for a publication date for From Calcutta with Love. Thanks so much for reading; Your comments and questions are  invited.

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Letting Go of Letters

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Adopted daughter, adoptee, Archives, Correspondence, Decluttering, Letters, memories, Nostalgia

“Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
January, a great month for new beginnings. Inspired by Marie Kondo, queen of the Declutter World, I once again vow to sweep through the entire house and prune the excess, reduce the redundancies, eliminate the irrelevant. It’s not the first time I’ve embarked a declutter campaign, but this time, I am being non-negotiable. My constant mantra: OHIO (Only Handle it Once). Years of selling stuff at neighbors’ yard sales, donating to charities, giving things away: I still felt hopelessly cluttered. The “things” grew back, multiplied, maybe even reproduced at night while I was sleeping.
Correspondence collections are close to my heart, harder to part with than books, photos, or just about anything else. Because it would be tough, I decided to start there. I recently tackled a column of banker boxes that resided in a closet, unopened, for several decades. I’d do my heirs a favor by going through, keeping a precious few letters, and taking the bulk of them to the recycle bin.
As an adult adoptee, I’ve always believed that the best way to know where to go, one must see where one has been.
“The past is not dead. It is not even past.” —William Faulkner
Not surprisingly, most archived letters were from my parents, both biological and adoptive. Giovanni Cecchini, the birthfather I got to see three times after I was adopted, was a Navy photographer during WWII. When he and his new wife Margaret moved to Amelia Island, Florida, he became a well-known photographer in the town of Fernandina Beach. He gardened and photographed for many years before his death in 1998. I travel yearly to Amelia Island to visit Margaret. On 12/29/91, Giovanni wrote “Another letter from me — lucky you (I guess).”
My birthmother Velma and I had a long correspondence, and I came across her epistle of 2/13/94. She wrote “Dearest Daughter, I had to peek at my Valentine on Friday (I sent one to her every February) but put it away until Monday…Your four parents are very proud of how you grew up to be beautiful with many talents.”
My adoptive dad’s WWII letters provided the material for my book From Calcutta with Love-The WWII Letters of Richard and Reva Beard (published in 2002 by Texas Tech University Press, due to be re-issued by Pajarito Press in 2020). He also wrote to me every Sunday until his death in 1997. His letters were filled with reports of his life with my adoptive mom Reva, observations about everything from world events to the weather. On February 18, 1990, he wrote “Dearest Elaine: This week has featured several wonderful springlike days, but today and to some extent yesterday were more like typical February weather. It has been dull, overcast, and just cold enough to be raw and uncomfortable outside — I know, I tried walking around the lake and even the Canadian geese looked discomfited.”
I am reading through the boxes of letters, keeping a precious few but relegating most of the epistles to the recycling bin. Typed and penned words from the past made time fall away. I was reminded of a time when letter-writing was the way to keep in touch. Those missives kept us close despite the miles in between. Now, with Email, Skype, Facebook, WhatsApp and other channels of communication, letters are nearly obsolete. With their passing, we will have lost something irreplaceable. On the other hand, think of that person who’d love to hear from you, not instantly. Perhaps it’s not too late to revive the custom of letter-writing.
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Join Elaine once or twice a month on Mondays for reflections on life as seen through adoption-colored glasses. Do you enjoy writing letters? Comments are welcome!

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adoption, China-Burma-India (CBI), Gratitude, Letters, Love, reunion, WWII

I’m working on a new edition of my WWII book of letters, From Calcutta with Love, to be published in 2019 by Pajarito Press. Herewith, one of my favorite epistles. My adoption history begins with a 1930s love story, that of my adoptive parents Richard and Reva Beard. They’d been teenage sweethearts in Findlay, Ohio, they married in 1937, and they put off starting their family until my father-to-be earned his doctorate from Ohio State University.

For six years, while Richard earned his PhD in clinical psychology, Reva taught elementary school. When it turned out that they were not able to have children, they decided to adopt. The outbreak of World War II, however, further delayed the formation of a family.

Richard was drafted and sent to India. He served as a clinical psychologist in charge of a neuropsychiatric ward at the 142nd General Hospital in Calcutta, part of the China-Burma-India theater of the WWII. For 18 months, my future adoptive parents were separated by 6,000 months. My mother-to-be lived at home with her parents in Findlay, Ohio. She continued to teach school and inquired into adopting a baby. Without a dad in the home, however, adoption proved impossible.

Devoted to one another for a lifetime, Richard and Reva exchanged letters every day of their wartime separation. Sometimes they alluded to adopting a child; Always they reaffirmed their strong love and devotion for one another. My divorced birth mother attended college where Richard was a guidance counselor. As far as I can tell, she asked him to help her by taking my brother and me. I was five and my brother nearly two.

Years later as I read through my parents’ wartime letters, I was moved and inspired by the depth of their love. Of all the confessions of love, this is the one I most cherish…

Calcutta, India
May 29, 1945
Dearest Reva,
You asked why I had white roses delivered to you on May 16. It was a sentimental and romantic gesture in which the traditional meaning of the colors of flowers was invoked. But to my way of thinking I could as well offer a white rose upon the altar of my love for you each day. Purity is as much a lovely characteristic of your being today as it was the first time I touched your hand in 1930. By some miracle, your contact with life—with me— has not coarsened you. I reflect upon you and me in the car under the moonlight, in the front room listening to “Moon River,” and in the bed we have shared, I am aware that I have approached you each time as a man who knows his love for the first glorious union of body and soul

Waiting for the war to end, Reva lived for letters from India.

How much our separation has meant to me I dare not put on paper. Perhaps, just before I sail for home, I may try. But rather by far that I be permitted to demonstrate in a real way what I mean. You will not have to cling to me, you are me.

Perhaps in all this I am idealizing, but I think not. this low, weary year has given me time to consider many things, the significance of which has been blurred in the past. Clearcut, sharp and pure, etched against the certificate of our union as a palm tree silhouettes against the blue of a late Indian evening, is the world-crashing, world-engulfing, between-you-and-me eternal fact: I am so glad that you married me.

Goodnight, precious Ritter. I’ll help moisten that pillow soon, from which I have so often seen your large brown lovely eyes watching me. They are looking down on me now, Reva.

In devotion,
Dick

I’ve recounted my adoptive parents’ story in From Calcutta with Love-The WWII Letters of Richard and Reva Beard. Their love for each other became a gift of love for me.

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Join Elaine for reflections on adoption, writing, hiking and life in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Your comments are invited.

 

Love Letter Straight from the Heart

Tags

adoption, CBI Theater, Gratitude, Letters, Love, reunion, WWII

White roses were my mom’s favorite flower

My adoption history begins with a 1930s love story, that of my adoptive parents Richard and Reva Beard. They’d been teenage sweethearts in Findlay, Ohio, they married in 1937, and they put off starting their family until my father-to-be earned his doctorate from Ohio State University.

For six years, while Richard earned his PhD in clinical psychology, Reva taught elementary school. When it turned out that they were not able to have children, they decided to adopt. The outbreak of World War II, however, further delayed the formation of a family.

Richard wrote about Calcutta, life at the 142nd General Hospital and missing “home, wife, and love”

Richard was drafted and sent to India. He served as a clinical psychologist in charge of a neuropsychiatric ward at the 142nd General Hospital in Calcutta, part of the China-Burma-India theater of the WWII. For 18 months, my future adoptive parents were separated by 6,000 months. My mother-to-be lived at home with her parents in Findlay, Ohio. She continued to teach school and inquired into adopting a baby. Without a dad in the home, however, adoption proved impossible.

Reva waited at home for the war to end

Devoted to one another for a lifetime, Richard and Reva exchanged letters every day of their wartime separation. Sometimes they alluded to adopting a child; Always they reaffirmed their strong love and devotion for one another. My divorced birth mother attended college where Richard was a guidance counselor. As far as I can tell, she asked him to help her by taking my brother and me. I was five and my brother nearly two.

Years later as I read through my parents’ wartime letters, I was moved and inspired by the depth of their love.

Here is one of my favorite Richard and Reva epistles:

Calcutta, India
May 29, 1945
Dearest Reva,
You asked why I had white roses delivered to you on May 16. It was a sentimental and romantic gesture in which the traditional meaning of the colors of flowers was invoked. But to my way of thinking I could as well offer a white rose upon the altar of my love for you each day. Purity is as much a lovely characteristic of your being today as it was the first time I touched your hand in 1930. By some miracle, your contact with life—with me— has not coarsened you. I reflect upon you and me in the car under the moonlight, in the front room listening to “Moon River,” and in the bed we have shared, I am aware that I have approached you each time as a man who knows his love for the first glorious union of body and soul

How much our separation has meant to me I dare not put on paper. Perhaps, just before I sail for home, I may try. But rather by far that I be permitted to demonstrate in a real way what I mean. You will not have to cling to me, you are me.

Perhaps in all this I am idealizing, but I think not. this low, weary year has given me time to consider many things, the significance of which has been blurred in the past. Clearcut, sharp and pure, etched against the certificate of our union as a palm tree silhouettes against the blue of a late Indian evening, is the world-crashing, world-engulfing, between-you-and-me eternal fact: I am so glad that you married me.

Goodnight, precious Ritter. I’ll help moisten that pillow soon, from which I have so often seen your large brown lovely eyes watching me. They are looking down on me now, Reva.

In devotion,
Dick

I’ve recounted my adoptive parents’ story in From Calcutta with Love-The WWII Letters of Richard and Reva Beard. Their love for each other became a gift of love for me.