My parents, Richard and Shelly, on their wedding day, March 16, 1968.
Dear Mom and Dad,
Apparently, the traditional gift for a 58th wedding anniversary is bronze: strong, durable, and built to stand the test of time. Which feels like a pretty good description of your marriage.
But what makes a marriage last that long? Could the answer be hiding in the way it begins…in love letters?
Considering my next book is built from letters written to me, I started wondering what the earliest letters of a long marriage might reveal.
Which is why I asked if I could read some of yours. I wondered if there were clues in them, little signals of how two people build a life together.
I briefly considered sharing a few excerpts with my readers. (Thank you again for allowing me.) But then I started reading them and had to stop, stick my fingers in my ears, and yell loudly, “La, la, la!”
Some love letters probably shouldn’t be shared. (Especially with their children.) But you knew that, Dad, didn’t you? That’s why you redacted a few words years ago, telling Mom you did it in case your daughters ever read them.
Good thinking.
Part of my dad’s letter, blurred out. You’re welcome.
My next book is filled with love letters too. (So now you can block your ears.) But what strikes me about all these love letters—yours and mine—is the obvious difference in outcome.
You two are celebrating almost six decades together. And me? Well, my longest relationship lasted nine years with what’s-his-name. But this post isn’t about me.
Your letters were the beginning of something neither of you could have fully imagined at the time. Maybe that’s the beautiful part of love: you don’t know what it will become when you first start writing the story.
You just keep writing it.
Which might be the real secret: love isn’t one big moment. It’s thousands of small ones added together, year after year, letter after letter. Two young people writing across distance, sharing ordinary days, and somehow those small moments grew into 58 years of something strong and durable.
A life.
A family.
A history.
As your daughter (the one who reads and writes letters for a living) I’m grateful for the example you’ve given me of what love can look like over time. And though the letters may be fewer, the story they started is still going.
Happy anniversary! You’re proof that some stories, like the best letters, last a lifetime.
With love (and a huge thank you to Dad again for the redactions),
P.S. Have you ever read your parents’ love letters, or discovered something surprising about how their story began?
Thank you for the Letters by Kris Bowers
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Felice Cohen is an award-winning author, best known for squeezing big ideas into small spaces—like her 90-square-foot NYC apartment (yes, really). Her books include Half In: A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Forbidden Love, 90 Lessons for Living Large in 90 Square Feet, and What Papa Told Me, with praise from legends like Elie Wiesel and Rita Mae Brown. Her viral YouTube tour has racked up over 25 million views—mostly from people wondering where she kept her shoes. More at felicecohen.com.
Happy anniversary to my shipmate and his bride. How cool to look back and get a glimpse of their beginnings—redacted and all.
How lucky your family is to have you as its epistolarian (spell-check doesn’t recognize “epistolarian!”). But you seem to have come by your letter-writing naturally.
Happy anniversary to your parents. John and I celebrated our 53rd anniversary last October. Don’t have as many of our letters as I’d like.