I have had my own exposure to letters and documents between or related to my parents, grandparents and beyond and it's so fascinating to begin to flesh out more of the true character and person each of them was, outside of the limited view we ever had of them. That's a key point to remember in life as far as I'm concerned... we only ever really see all we are allowed, or have exposure to, of somebody. There's always so much more. So much so that it's part of why I tend to take a "Devil's Advocate" position about accusations, assumptions and judgement calls.
For Jen, the letters told a story she'd not known of before, and they confirmed some of her own upset about the disconnect she feels to this day from her mother, as well. The relationship she recalls between the two sisters was distant, tense and adversarial. Yet these letters were filled with intimate mentions of missing the other, of familial love and bonds. What changed? That was her question about the difference between what she saw between them in their later years, and what they apparently shared decades prior.
It got me thinking that, perhaps nothing changed significantly between them, but what she was reading was exposure and insight into aspects of her mom from a completely different angle. If they had been asked, would they have shrugged off the idea that anything had actually changed between them over the past 50+ years? Maybe they would say it's all in your head, you're being silly, or that you just don't understand them. And perhaps that's part of the truth, too.
We as people tend to make our assumptions and draw our conclusions from very, very limited amounts of information. People are like icebergs, you only see the top 10 percent. I myself have been around people I had sized up in one way or another, then found myself speechless when I would learn something about them that completely changed my understanding of who they were. I also have the first hand experience of having been considered for years as a good person before having said or done something that went against somebody's grain, only to be told indirectly that "you have changed". Maybe I had and maybe that was a good change for me, or maybe I had not changed at all. Maybe they just didn't know something about me until that moment that they had not liked or agreed about or identified with, and once they did, was it "me" that changed, or their perspective?
Getting back to the box, one other really awesome moment I want to capture is her having found letters containing a carpet swatch, and another continuing a wallpaper sample, both of which ended up being in the house she grew up in. My jaw dropped as she shared how she remembered playing with the stag carpet strands as she laid on the floor, or how she recognized the pattern and texture of the wallpaper now in her hands. There's something magical about having remnants of your childhood still in your possession, and something exponentially magical when it pops up unexpectedly out of know where.
