the answer
Read the letter here
My Sweet,
I have read your letter many times over. I sit here in my tiny studio, alone and very lonely. I miss your warmth, your touch, your lovely scent, the feel of your silky hair. It is 2:00 AM and the moonlight shines through the window, brightening everything, hauntingly reminding me of you. I can hear your soft voice…
Just as you, I am trying to bring rational reason to the serious, live-changing questions we now face. I realize that time is dissolving our resolve… and our hearts. Just as you have weighed doing the right thing in pounds of love or sadness, I, too, have my own scale on which I must place our problems to determine the right answers for the long-term picture. Not just for you and me, but for those of our family members who are so intricately and intimately involved; and as the potential of children we might have in the future.
These are the things I’ve been wondering: What will the lives of our children be like? What color will their skins be? Will they be very black and beautiful like yours? Or will they be pale and freckled with red hair and delicate skins like mine? Who will they look like? Perhaps they will be a combination of us both. Or more likely not, since we are so genetically different, they will look much more like one of us rather than the other. How will that effect them? Will our children have only us as a family if our parents reject our marriage because of the prejudices they’ve already shown?
Perhaps they will accept our love, soften at the thought of losing us, and become a part of a mixed racial family. Knowing what we’ve already experienced, what do you think are the chances of that? Will our children have our parents as grandparents, or siblings as aunts, uncles? Will there be cousins? If not, how would we explain their absence without spreading even more divisions and prejudices to them?
And then there is the question of religion. I am a Jew. You are a Christian. Each of our families feel strongly about their religion. Frankly, I don’t. But I realize that you are probably more involved in Christian traditions. Would you want to bring up children as Christians? Or with no religion… until they are old enough to decide for themselves? For some children, this could become an important issue. I remember a lot about it from when I was a child. It was not fun. As only one of a few Jews, I was an outcast.
Honestly, I am torn. And, no, I don’t think cowardice, as you suggest in your letter, enters into this! I have not left this decision all to you — as you also suggest. But I do think that we each must go deep into our own souls and parse out the issues so that we can come together and talk about my ideas and feeling as well as your own, then make a decision together. Yes, I know we have talked about this endlessly. But the time has come and we must move forward, either together or apart.
I love you with all my heart. My question is… will that love remain steadfast in the wake of familial turmoil, absentee relatives — if they don’t come around. And will your love for me stay true? If it were just me, and we had no families who were so set against us, the decision would be easy. You and I could stay here… or go away wherever we wanted. We could marry and live our lives as we wished. Wouldn’t that be lovely!
But isn’t that selfish? Do we not have to consider that each of our parents have spent their lives parenting us, loving us, teaching us, protecting us? Don’t we need to consider how they would feel if they suddenly lose their children? A tremendous loss! Would that not be like experiencing two deaths for our families?
I don’t want to wait for a Pandora’s Box to be opened and many unnamed surprises come flying out, some potentially tragic. I want to know beforehand that we thought out everything carefully. So there are no serious bumps in the road to our future. I want to be responsible! Don’t you?
I agree that our parents are being “old fasioned” and obdurate. I don’t think anything we do can change them. We must be strong enough to believe whatever decision we make is the right one and it won’t get in the way of our happiness.
If we have even the slightest doubt that we are prepared for this potentially brutal fight ahead, then I think we must part.
You asked if I am ready for battle? My answer is first we should meet for a day and talk, together, about all the points I mention, as well as all your own issues. Then, my sweet, we can decide if we will put on our armor and go into battle… or decide to part ways if that, sadly, seems the only way to survive this intact.
Are you with me? Please remember how much I love you!
I’ll wait to hear from you… please come here soon.
© Joan A. Evans 2018 All rights reserved
