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My Grandfather's Letters

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#1091747 added June 29, 2025 at 5:36pm
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1970 (Week Two)

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September 28, 1970

My Paul,

Nearly three years.

That’s how long it’s been since I last saw you, touched you, heard you laugh in person instead of only in memory. Nearly three years of writing letters, so many now that I’ve lost count. Some I’ve mailed. Some I’ve tucked away in drawers or boxes; afraid they’d vanish into the void. But I keep writing. It makes me feel close to you, like I’m leaving a trail you can follow home.

I’ve thrown myself into work since you’ve been gone. You remember when I first took the job as a court reporter just to help with bills while you were away? I never thought it would become my calling. But sitting there, recording every word, watching how people’s lives rise and fall on the truth or the lies they tell has opened my eyes, Paul. There’s so much injustice in the world, so much that people want to hide, hoping no one is paying attention.

I am paying attention.

Your absence made me braver than I ever knew I could be. I’ve made a few friends at the courthouse, women who, like me, are waiting for word on husbands lost to war. We share coffee and stories, but beneath it all, we share the same hope: that we’ll see our men walk back through the door.

And I don’t just sit and wait, Paul. You know me. I call. I write. I hound the government, pressing for updates. Pushing them until they remember that behind the files and reports and missing-in-action stamps are lives; yours, mine, ours. I won’t let them forget you.

Your niece, little Paula Hope, turned one on September 19th. She’s walking now, tiny wobbly steps with curious hands always going where she shouldn’t be. She’s so smart like she’s been here before and her age is just holding her back. Julia says she’s got her stubbornness and your quiet watchfulness. I see pieces of you in her, and it hurts in the sweetest way.

Sometimes, when the world feels too heavy, I imagine we’re together again while I’m cooking and singing the Beatles song “Get Back” around the kitchen, off-key and loud, to make you laugh. I imagine you’d say, “Sometimes people just need a push to get back to where they once belonged.”

I know it’s been a long time. I know you’re out there somewhere, fighting your way back in your own way. Just don’t forget...we’re still here. Still waiting.

So, here’s your push, Paul.

Get back.

Get back to me.

There’s still a spot in the bed where you belong.

Still a teacup on the shelf I won’t use until you come home.

Still a part of me that only makes sense when you’re near.

I love you. I always will.

Come home.

Yours forever,
Vera

John found the letter tucked between two thinner envelopes, folded neatly in a way that suggested it had been opened many times creases soft from fingers that had gone back to it again and again. He could almost imagine Vera sitting at the kitchen table, re-reading her own words, waiting for an answer that might never come.

He sank onto an old trunk, unfolding the page slowly.

The tone hit him immediately gentler than the others, but charged with a longing that was sharper now. Less poetic. More achingly real. It was all there: the birth of his aunt Paula, a wedding, a family trying to move forward with a chair left empty. And beneath it, Vera’s quiet but unshakable refusal to give up hope.

John’s eyes skimmed the lines:

“There’s still a spot in the bed where you belong..”

“Still a teacup on the shelf I won’t use until you come home..”

He read those lines four times.

He thought about the chipped blue and white teacup in the back of Grandma Vera’s old China cabinet. It had always seemed out of place delicate, unused. Now he knew why.

The house around him creaked gently, wood groaning with age and memory. He imagined Vera writing that letter, pen scratching across paper, heart stretched thin between hope and heartbreak.

And then he smiled, just faintly.

"Get back," she’d written. The Beatles lyric felt like less of a song now and more of a prayer.

For the first time, John realized: This wasn’t just a story about love. It was a map. A roadmap back to something lost.

His grandfather had always hummed Beatles tunes under his breath, like they were stitched into the rhythm of his life. And now, John saw what they really were breadcrumbs. Sentimental echoes. Little reminders of a man who had seen hell, who had nearly been erased by it, and who had found his way back through memory, music, and one woman’s unwavering belief.

John folded the letter carefully and added it to the growing stack beside him.

This wasn’t over.

There was more still to find.

And something maybe Paul himself was pulling him forward.

Just like the song said.

Get back.

Get back to where you once belonged.

October 19, 1970

U.S. Military Hospital, Somewhere in the Pacific

My Vera,

I don’t even know how to begin this letter except to say: I’m alive.

I’m free.

Let those words sit with you for a moment, sweetheart. Let them bloom.

We were rescued.

I don’t know how much I can share or how long this letter will take to reach you, but I couldn’t wait. We’re still in a restricted zone, and they won’t let us make calls just yet. But the minute I had access to paper and pen, I asked for both. I had to write you first. Before anyone else.

Because it’s you, Vera. It’s always been you.

Right now, I’m in a hospital bed with more tubes in me than I care to count, and a nurse who keeps scolding me for sitting up to write this. I keep telling her, “There’s someone waiting for me. She’s been waiting for years. I owe her this.”

They say my vitals are good. My weight’s coming back. My voice is still a bit rough, but I’ve got enough breath in me to sing a little Beatles tune under my breath. You’d laugh at how off key I sound right now. I sound like a scratched-up record.

Vera, I don’t know how I made it through some days in that camp. But I know why I did.

It was us.

Two of us, riding nowhere, spending someone’s hard-earned pay… Two of us chasing paper letters across oceans and silence. Two of us whispering “I love you” into places we didn’t know we’d ever escape.

I’ll be coming home soon. That’s what they tell me. A few more weeks of recovery, then reassignment, and then...us, again.

I don’t know what I’ll look like to you now. I’ve seen too much. Felt too much. I’ve aged a hundred years, Vera. But I promise you this:

My love for you? It’s untouched.

Stronger.

Clearer.

And ready to come home.

We’ll go walking again, just the two of us. No more guards. No more cages. Just you and me, singing old songs and laughing like fools. Maybe we’ll even get lost on purpose, just so we can find our way back together.

I’ll see you soon, my heart.

Wait just a little longer.

I’m almost there.

Forever and always,
Paul

Word Count: 1246

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