Dear loves,
I have held onto a letter from Brent’s mother for over 30 years. I’ve lost countless random things in that time – umbrellas, sunglasses, jackets – but I have never misplaced this letter.
Brent was a really good friend of mine during a particularly dark time in my life (otherwise known as high school). He listened like no one else. He reassured me like no one else.
He also taught me how to make The Best Grilled Cheese.
Over winter break of our first year of college, he died in a car accident.
.
.
.
Another day I’ll write about that. Today let’s just focus on the letter.
After the funeral, I wrote his mother, and felt called to share this line because it reminded me of the nights Brent and I spent talking into the night sky.
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine.
That all the world will be in love with night.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene II
I was back at college when I received a response, and my mom dropped it into another envelope and mailed it to me. Brent’s mom had written that she was having those lines etched into his gravestone.
I didn’t mean to do that, to influence his gravestone. Let that honor be for his parents, his sister, or his girlfriend. Not me. Yet I did.
I opened the cherished envelope again this morning, as I sat down to write this. In addition to the letter from his mom, I also found a note Brent had written me which I forgot I held onto.
In red bubble letters, he wrote diagonally across the paper, THERE IS SO MUCH I KNOW THAT YOU CAN DO.
(Thank you for the reminder, dear friend.)
Never underestimate the power of your words. And hand-written letters.
With great love for your lives, for those that seem far too short,
And for tiny gestures permanently etched in stone, in paper, in souls,
kristin