A handwritten letter can be a Christmas gift. Besides being something very personal, it has a better chance of lasting than anything written in the electronic age. Handwriting, even without being a graphologist, conveys a lot of emotion.

Handwriting doesn’t allow for “cut and paste,” at most, copying. But perhaps the most important factor is that the paper itself can serve as a symbol that connects us to that person, like a relic.

A letter that acknowledges the pain of the person we write to, expressing our affection, can heal wounds. AI (Artificial Intelligence) can help us at the level of concepts and ideas, which, when handwritten and understood by the letter’s author, take on special value for the recipient.

When Christmas gifts are saturated with consumerism, a personal letter can be a living gift. The message it conveys doesn’t wear out; it remains and even transforms. The same letter, read years later, can have a different meaning. That’s what happened with the letter I wrote to my mother. The new meaning was that silence isn’t always a lack of communication. My mother never told me she had read the letter. For years, I doubted its usefulness. The letter’s folds, worn and torn by time, indicated that it had been read many times.

Thirty years later, when his mother died, it was unknown whether she had read the letter. Mother and son never spoke of it. It is true, however, that there was a change in their moods at that time. The letter, written on yellowed paper, creased at the folds from so much opening and closing, turned up in the box of their “personal treasures.”

The first message that comes to mind today is that of family. Like the letter, it seems to have faded away, as if it’s not there. We find it difficult to get together. But just as the letter seemed to disappear, it was very much present in her heart, since she read it many times, judging by the wear on the paper. Family, even when unseen, is always there.

The letter I will reproduce was written on December 10, 1984. My mother, fifty years old, had been a widow for a year. I, the writer, was twenty-six years old at the time.

Although it was the first grief support I provided, it wasn’t a professional intervention. There was a very personal involvement. A solution to the grief impasse was almost “forced.” But it did address two of the main themes of beginning grief therapy. The first is becoming aware of the desire to live or not. Accepting the negative response to one’s own life means accompanying without imposing, in order to approach the pain, understand it, and heal it. The second theme is the meaning of my life. Why or for whom to live. The model is Jesus, who gave his life. This point was important: making her feel needed. We all need to be needed. Finding meaning in life without the other person who is no longer here.

The article, along with the letter, aims to be a tool for healing through what we can call “epistotherapy,” that is, therapeutic writing.

Pope Leo said so these days in the catechesis of November 26;

“Many lives, all over the world, appear weary, painful, full of problems and obstacles to overcome. However, human beings receive life as a gift: they do not ask for it, they do not choose it, they experience it in its mystery from the first day to the last. Life has its own extraordinary specificity: it is offered to us, we cannot give it to ourselves, and it must be constantly nourished: it requires care that sustains it, makes it dynamic, protects it, and revitalizes it.”

“Dear friends, there is a widespread illness in the world: a lack of trust in life. It is as if we have resigned ourselves to a negative, resigned fate. Life risks no longer representing a possibility received as a gift, but rather an unknown, almost a threat from which we must protect ourselves lest we become disillusioned. Therefore, the value of living and generating life, of bearing witness that God is above all ‘The lover of life,’ is paramount.”

I suppose my mother will forgive me for talking about her, because in life she was very discreet with her emotions.

Letter:

Barcelona, ​​December 10, 1984

My dear mother,

Even though nothing frightens you anymore, don’t be shocked to receive this letter. It’s easier for me to write to you from my room, and it’s not that I’m ashamed of you, because if I’m ashamed of you, I don’t know who I wouldn’t be ashamed of then.

You already know who I want to talk about, you and the woman your father has made you into.

You’ve told me, and you know better than anyone, that he gave you everything he had: from the effort to never get drunk again, which was one of the first proofs of his love, to this house in the mountains, which bears your name and for which he himself asked me to make the letters in ceramic, so that everyone could see it: “Villa Triny.” He even gave you your children, although you say he loved us more than you loved us; for him, we were his greatest gift to you. Kissing you was like kissing him.

I’m not going to waste time telling you how much I loved you because only you know it better than anyone else.

I’ll tell you that without him, you would have been a different woman, and we wouldn’t exist. We are his creation in this world. He loved us and taught us everything his strength allowed.

We know through faith that he lives; he’s not dead as you say, because love doesn’t die. And if we, who are worse than God, love him and he lives on in our memories, God, who is the good Father, loves him even more than we do and has taken him to his side. For God, what matters is love, and Dad knew that all too well.

But if you don’t have faith—and sometimes it seems we don’t—simply remembering him should bring you comfort. Let me explain: You know he didn’t take much care of himself, and perhaps that’s why he left us so soon, but he did take care of the things that mattered to him, and there were things that sometimes worried him so much they kept him awake at night. Those things were his family. I don’t even want to think about that time you were sick. He called me to come and take charge of the shop, but his voice, almost trembling, wasn’t that of a businessman who needed a worker. It was that of someone searching for medicine to cure the one he loved most, and what better medicine for a mother than a child?

It even hurts me to remember how much he cared for me: from coming here to Barcelona, ​​going to France, looking for doctors, giving me what he thought was best, and since what he thought was best wasn’t being a friar, he didn’t like it, he wanted the best!

I never wanted to ask him for anything because I knew that before I could even open my mouth, I’d already have it in my hands. And I won’t go on because I’d cry and wouldn’t be able to keep writing.

You realize that we are his creation, the thing he wanted to be proud of, the thing for which he wanted the best in the world.

If his project fails, collapses, goes bankrupt, all his work will have been in vain. He will have labored for nothing. And how infuriating it would be to know that one’s effort is worthless. It feels as if they’re laughing at you, as if you’re useless.

Well, Mom, we are his creation, the one he loved so much, and you think we have the right to ruin it or break it, to laugh at him, to say: look what you’ve done! Now it’s a wreck! What did you work so hard for!

No, Mom, I don’t know what you think, but I don’t want to. I have to be happy because my father sacrificed so much for me, and I’m not going to throw away his hard work. On the contrary, he should continue to be proud of me. And when people ask me why I am the way I am, or why I have this or that, I’ll say it’s because I had a father who taught me and gave it to me.

I know your pain is great, so great that many times the rest of us suffer more for you than for Dad. Because don’t tell me you’re suffering because you’re alone, which isn’t entirely true, at least not right now. You’re suffering because you loved him, and although in a different way, the rest of us loved him too, and now we suffer twice as much: suffering for him, and suffering for you because we see you suffer.

You say you don’t want to live more than two or three years, that everything is over for you.

If I could give her my life, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. But I would give it to her so she could be happy, take care of herself, and enjoy life; I wouldn’t give it to her to waste it, making it bitter.

I’m sure that if he had been asked if he would give his life for us, he would have given four lives. He only had one, and he gave it. Do you think he deserves for us to waste it like that?

I think it’s the opposite; before, we didn’t care about anything because we had him, but now that he’s gone, we have to listen to him: do what he wanted from us, like when parents leave their children home alone and they behave as if they were there because they respect and love them. Even though he’s gone, he still loves us.

Mom, don’t think so much about yourself, think about him and how much he loved you. Don’t let him down now that he can’t whisper in your ear every night. He doesn’t talk to you now, but you know what he always wanted.

Don’t think so much about yourself and think a little about me. I suffer a lot when I know you’re suffering; my suffering is then twofold.

Love me like he loved me. You think my grief is small. You say no one cares about you anymore, and that’s a lie. The first year was hard for me, but do you think it won’t be hard the day you’re gone? I never want to hear you say again that no one cares about you because you’re hurting me and my siblings, and who knows, maybe others too, but especially me, and that’s what matters.

Finally, I will speak to you as a friar, since until now I have spoken to you as a son.

Life is meant to be lived by giving to others, because that’s what Jesus Christ taught us. The father, who had only attended catechism classes a little, knew this very well and practiced it, and it’s proof that he made his life—his time, his friendship, etc.—available to those who needed it. This was evident in all the people who gratefully attended his funeral, and in those who couldn’t attend.

Well, God gave us life for that purpose, to live it, because otherwise He wouldn’t have given it to us. Aren’t you grateful for what you’ve experienced? You have someone who has loved you very much. You should thank God for showing you such great love, thanks to your father. Your father has taught you what love is. God is love too.

You think this is the end, and truly, if this were the end, life would be worthless. It wouldn’t be worth being born.

The Bible says that for God, a thousand years is like a blink of an eye for us. For God, time doesn’t exist as it does for us. He doesn’t measure it in millimeters. The end is the loving reunion with those we have loved and with Him who loves us more than anyone, even though we may not realize it. He became man (Jesus) and died and rose again to tell us that eternal life exists.

What matters is the end, and you can’t reach the end saying, “I don’t want anything to do with you, Lord. I’ve wasted the life you gave me, slowly killing myself.” You have to arrive saying, “Lord, here I am. I have loved as you have loved us. I have loved myself and I have loved others.”

The end is the one that matters, but not the end you are creating for yourself, but the end that the Lord is preparing for you.

Dad’s already arrived, he’s helping us from there, right? Who do you think is helping me write this letter?

See, Mom, you’re not as alone as you think. You have people who love you, and above all, people who are waiting for you to love them. There isn’t as much love in the world as there should be, so why don’t you contribute a little more? You, who know what it is to love because you’ve been loved like no one else.

Don’t stop praying for him too, perhaps he needs it, but remember that the best prayer you can offer our Lord is to thank Him for life by being happy, and the greatest gift you can give Dad is to show him that what he has done has been worthwhile, that he hasn’t given up.

I love you so much, I need you so much, Mom, don’t let me down.

Your son and brother in faith.

Alfonso