Grandma’s Letters

This story begins like most stories… just a day, just an ordinary day (cue Vanessa Carlton).

Nov. 19, 2019

It was a slow day at the office one Wednesday afternoon, so I popped open one of the transparent Tupperwares that had been sitting in the back of my dad’s office. The smell of tide laundered sheets and old rattan furniture filled the air. I picked up a random browned envelope from the center of the stack with my grandmother’s squiggly handwriting. Red and blue candy stripes bordered the envelope addressed to a Mr. & Mrs. R. G. Sanders in El Monte, CA.

Turns out my grandmother, Nelda, wrote hundreds of letters to her parents in CA from Guam. I opened the letter marked July 12 and down, down I fell into 1968, mesmerized as a clear image of my father as a child and my Uncle Chris came into view. They were returning from their boonie-fort in the Guam jungle with sling shots made from old innertubes around their necks, covered in mosquito bites.

I couldn’t tell you what Meredith (my dad’s secretary) was doing or who was passing around me. I had time travelled and was completely engrossed in these letters as I read one after the other.

Grandma writing about grandpa, April 19th, 1957

The letters span from 1953 to 1992 and were mainly addressed to Nelda’s father and mother in CA. In total, there are 345 (1, 282 pages) written mostly by my grandmother although some were written by my grandfather and by their children: Mickey (my dad), Chris, Frances, Steve, Kate, and Jose. I sat in a full Asian squat in the back corner of my dad’s office as I read letter after letter. The children described are running around barefoot in Agaña Heights, and later, Tamuning. They are tan. They have mosquito bites. Some are missing teeth. Later, they get married. Some birth children. As I read, every letter added impasto and a new cadmium pigment to the blank canvas that was Nelda and Mick before they became “Grandma” and “Grandpa.” I knew I had to scan them and piece together a story. But how?