Stories Collected While Living in France

French la Vie

The Love Letters

                                         

love letters

Winged thoughts stacked, page after page of love letters, held together with hope.
                                                                                   Love letters

The love letters. Words spilling out hoping to wet the reader's heart. Did he know? Would he respond… it did not matter anymore. Her thoughts took wing, they had to be released… the freedom to let go stirred her soul, allowed her to imagine that he cared.

French-lace

                                            Why did she wait so long to speak of her heart? In her frustration she
took her hat pin and poked her finger. A spot of red mixed with the
lace.

Lace on purple

With the love letters she added the piece of lace from her slip. Textured lace. Maybe he would hold it to his lips, maybe she would feel his hand upon her face. The thought alone counted for something…. then again she wanted more than just her fantasies.

Portrait

Though she preferred the frame more than her portrait she sent both.
Waiting now for his response was the hardest part.
——————————————————————

Where did you meet the one you love?

                     

                   
    

                         

Comments

52 responses to “The Love Letters”

  1. Jeanne

    Angels brought us together.
    Love letters straight from the heart keep us so near while apart.
    More than words Letters mingle souls.
    I love you
    I love love love
    Love Letters.
    Kisses

    Reply
  2. Christy Spear

    I wish that my story of meeting my husband had something to do with lace and delicate things, but no. I met my husband on a drop zone (site where Army airborne soldiers jump into from planes).
    Both of us wore our battle dress uniforms, and I had on no make-up; in fact, my face was smeared with loam green paint and beaded with sweat (it was July in the South).
    Nevertheless, when he walked up to the tree where I was resting, I thought he looked just like Paul Newman with his blue eyes standing out in his camouflage painted face. When he held out his hand to help me up from the ground under the shade tree, that was it, I knew.

    Reply
  3. M-Noëlle

    I met My H at a friend’s…

    Reply
  4. My Melange

    At the gym. And then we met again at a night out bowling with friends (not that any of us COULD bowl).
    Sounds so uneventful- dull and boring!
    Maybe I’ll have you *rewrite* our story into something a bit more romantic, Corey 😉
    Met my first LOVE at the doctors office I used to work at. He was a patient. Now THAT set of love letters would put the pink in your cheeks and curl your hair!!

    Reply
  5. Gracie

    A mutual female friend introduced us, some 30 years ago, one sunday afternoon at the disco. She’s still one of my best girlfriends LOL

    Reply
  6. Billie

    Officially…in my kitchen. A group of us were meeting at my house for brunch and then caravaning about 6 hours to New ORleans to see the Rolling Stones! I knew who he was (and that he was seeing someone). I had been running around like crazy all morning cooking and had dashed off to get a shower when everyone started to arrive. Towel on the head, big robe, fuzzy lippers and cold cream on my face. I went running full speed into the kitchen to apologize to guests and came to a sliding stop in front of HIM! I was immediately smitten…and I am to this day!

    Reply
  7. carole

    Hi Corey:
    I am still waiting for him; too old for Geary & Polk area : ) Suggestions?
    Peace
    carole

    Reply
  8. Mary

    I was new to the US and planning to stay just one year in Washington D.C. In the stairwell of the office building where I worked we met at the candy machine! He asked directions to my boss’s office – I said “follow me” and he still is, 45 years later!! We try to stay away from candy machines now – but always remember how one brought us together.

    Reply
  9. Joanie

    High School. He was in my Humanities class. I sat across the aisle from him.
    I got up the nerve to ask him to the Senior Prom. He said….no.
    But he asked me to go to the Senior Picnic.
    Six weeks later he asked me to marry him (I was 19! I said YES!!! I was sure he was THE ONE.) We waited to be married until we graduated from college.
    34 years later (4 dating, 30 married) here we are…going strong.

    Reply
  10. Denese Vlosky

    He was a Peace Corp Volunteer and I had returned to visit my host family in Costa Rica. We met on a beach in Puerto Viejo. We waved to each other at the ‘restaurant’. He bought me a beer and asked me to go snorkeling with him the next morning. The conversation was short. I excused myself to go to my room, and was terribly sick (bad crawfish I think). The next morning before dawn I took a puddle jumper back to San Jose. Before leaving I posted my name and address on his door and wrote, “Look me up if you’re ever in Tres Rios (where I was staying with my host family) or Portland, OR (my home).” He wrote me in Tres Rios and invited me to visit him in Turrialba, where he was stationed. Instead, I wrote him from somewhere in Mexico, in the midst of traveling overland back to the US.
    He visited me a year later in Portland on his way to a summer job in Alaska. I had a boyfriend. He arrived early. I was irritated. But, rather than cooking, I took him to a jazz club for dinner and … that was it!
    I went to visit him and his family in NY for Thanksgiving and never left. We married in the Spring. That was more than 25 years ago.

    Reply
  11. Miss Sandy

    I think I have shared this with you before, but I met him in the electronics dept. of a Wal-Mart store. There was no lace involved, only an elf outfit trimmed in white fur. I was an elf working for a PCA photographer taking pictures of children with Santa in a Wal-Mart store where he worked. I was only 14 at the time and dating was out of the question. We did not date until a few years later when we met again as we attended the same high school, I as a junior and he as a senior. As they say, the rest is history.

    Reply
  12. Candy

    These are some amazing stories. I met the love of my life on his 25th birthday at a bar in Phoenix. He danced with all my friends but never asked me. I still bring that up occasionally. He was so conservative. I was so…not. It’s true. Opposites do attract. The rest of the story is way more interesting. I’ll have to write it out sometime.

    Reply
  13. Ardi

    On a backpack trip to Cape Alava (the western point of the state of Washington). I was chaperoning my middle sister and her boyfriend who had just grduated from high school. He and a buddy had backpacked in to the site to celebrate his finishing his journeyman machinist course.

    Reply
  14. georgie

    I first saw him when he pulled up to my neighbor’s/his friend’s home on his GoldWing motorcycle. I was gardening in my yard. He stopped the motorcycle, pulled off the helmet—curly brown hair, tall with broad shoulders. He turned, smiled at me. Those dimples still get me. It took a while to get his attention but now we’ve been together for 17 years!

    Reply
  15. Lorilee

    He was a senior and I was a sophomore in high school. We were both in the same art class. He asked me to his Sr. Prom.
    Blessings,
    Lorilee

    Reply
  16. missy

    It was my first day on job working with handicapped young adults.He walked into the
    cafeteria laughing and smiling with a group of kids who obviously adored him. The kids
    pointed at the ‘new nurse’ and he grinned bigger–waved and then all the kids waved!!
    Simple joy radiated across the room and I was smitten. It took another year of glances
    and getting to know him….been married almost 30 years and I still see joy in his
    face when he sees me….
    Missy from the bayou

    Reply
  17. shannon in oregon

    we met at a picnic table during our last bit of new employee orientation. i was the one that kept asking questions, keeping us at that table a little bit longer. he was the one annoyed by the girl who was asking questions because he just wanted to go home…

    Reply
  18. Jeanette

    Met him while he was dating my best friend! Off limits…..but she gave him my number and history was made. Her words “I never thought I would invite an ex boyfriend to my wedding let alone attend his wedding as as the maid of honor!”LOL
    Hope you had a blessed Christmas.
    Jeanette

    Reply
  19. Tammy

    I met my love at the horse races of all things. I was there with a friend and really wasn’t giving my love the time of day but he was persistant. We bet on a gray horse. I picked the horse and he gave the dollar and we won 50 dollars. So we decided we were meant to be. He says God sent him an angel. I say God sent someone to heal my heart. I love your story with the letters…my heart stir…oh goodness
    love and blessings

    Reply
  20. Betty @ Country Charm

    I had one date with him in early high school…he said I needed to grow up…he was in college….two years later he asked me out again…two years later we married….June will be 49 years ago….

    Reply
  21. Kris

    At a dance, when I was 17 and he almost 19. We met at a place called Lamey’s Grove, an official place where kids went in the late sixties to dance to a live band called The Corvettes. He first danced with my girlfriend… and I… a friend of his who I already knew. After that my girlfriend and I left to go to a place called Parkway which was a drive-in restaurant. All you did was drive around the restaurant and pull in next to some guys or other friends and wait to see if any “sparks” flew”. While driving around the barrels (to keep us all going in the same direction, he came running across the parking lot, tripped over the barrel and split the knee out of his pants trying to get to our car.
    At first I thought he was after my girlfriend, but later found out it was me. We dated 1 and 1/2 years with a break-up in between and got back together and married. That was 38 years ago. Some things are just meant to be!!

    Reply
  22. ModernGearTamara

    I met my love on a frozen lake in northern Alberta, Canada. He was a dashing ice race car driver and I was the intrepid reporter, bundling up in 30-below weather to capture interviews and sounds for my radio travel adventure series. I gazed upon those clear blue eyes, and I was a goner. We were inseparable from that day on, and celebrate our second wedding anniversary in February. He still drives fast and I still tell stories, and we make each other better.

    Reply
  23. caren

    We met in high school. We had a class together- He was a senior, I was a junior. He had his best friend ask me if he (my husband) asked me out, would I go! Either he was chicken or was afraid I would turn him down. We dated off and on for the next 7 years. We have been married almost 32 years!

    Reply
  24. Suzanne, the Farmer’s Wife

    Does anyone actually write letters anymore? Beyond the e-mail, I mean. I love letters, handwritten letters. I receive wonderful letters, carefully and painstakingly crafted by a friend who is legally blind. They are treasures to me.
    I met the Farmer in a bar of all places. My friend had taken me to a place where her co-workers gathered to have a drink or two. She’d brought me to meet someone else she thought I might be interested in….. I wasn’t, but sitting at another table was one of her other co-workers. We talked, and the rest is history. We’ve been together for 35 years and married for 30 years.
    – Suzanne, the Farmer’s Wife

    Reply
  25. frenchgardenhouse

    In Holland. When I was 15. After that summer I arrived home in the states and told my Mom I had met my husband. She laughed, sure that I would get other ideas and beaus over the coming years. She was right about the other boyfriends, but not about the idea. I married my Dutchman when I just turned 19. Now, 35 years later, I love him more than ever. And our stack of love letters passed during those few years apart takes up a whole packing box.
    xo Lidy
    ps. Your “Romantics” feature in Romantic Homes Magazine is beautiful, Corey.

    Reply
  26. Isabel ~ Maison Douce

    I met my husband in Portugal, where I am from… He was a Marine at the American Embassy! We were set up on a blind date seventeen years ago and have been together ever since! I have saved every single love letter he wrote me (and he has every love letter I wrote him…)
    Isabel

    Reply
  27. deirdre

    I met him at his sister’s house – twice. The first time I barely noticed him, the second time I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Six months after that we met for tea on a Sunday morning and started falling in love.
    Next summer, ten years after our first meeting, we’re getting married.

    Reply
  28. Ceylon Sapphire

    I am obviously a throughly modern miss… I met my Love via an interent chat room and next June marks seven(!) years of marriage.

    Reply
  29. Jenny

    Thank you for asking this question Corey. I love these types of stories. I met my husband through my loving busybody sister. She strolled right up to him at church, asked if he was available to meet her single sensational sister (thanks sis!) and caught by surprise, he said yes. He called me up 2 days later and three days after that we first clamped eyes on each other and 7 years later (we married 8 months after first meeting) haven’t stopped loving each other, thanking my sister and giving sweet praises to the Lord for bringing us together.

    Reply
  30. Dawn

    Since I am a daughter of a pastor, I suppose it is appropriate that I met my husband in church.
    We started dating when I was 15 and we wrote four years of letters whilst he was away at college.
    We burned them one day after we got married….joking that they started afire all on their own.
    🙂

    Reply
  31. robin dudley-howes

    This is such a beautiful blog. I will come again.
    robin

    Reply
  32. Barbara Vasko

    at the Holy Ghost Revial Hall in walnut creek…a hall rented out for dances. he was 19 and i was 17. dec 20 we toasted our 42nd year of marriage. and they said it would not last…….
    bv

    Reply
  33. julie

    My husband and I each remember the exact moment we first saw each other. I was a waitress in a “hip” part of town, and he was the new bartender, working his way through university. There were lots of shy looks and touching on the shoulders as we passed each other. At a party one night, he brushed the snow off my car and I knew. It took a while, but once we were together, we were never, ever apart.This year is our 20th anniversary.

    Reply
  34. Lorene

    We met in a computer lab class in college. He was sitting next to me. When the teacher did role call and I heard his name I was shocked. I recognized instantly that his last name was Portuguese just like mine. What was shocking is the fact that he had blond hair and blue eyes. Which is not common in Portuguese people and I just started talking to him. And that was it. Nothing exciting LOL!

    Reply
  35. Colette

    In Dublin, Ireland, filling a doorway with his 6 ft 2 in. frame, his brown eyes twinkling at me. I fell for him then and there. What I didn’t know was that he had seen me before and had decided I was the one he would spend his life with.

    Reply
  36. AmandaMay

    I met my sweetheart on a boat during freshman orientation at college. I thought he looked way too normal to be friends with me. He talked with my sister, but I was too shy and only smiled. We have been together five years now, and I realize that I’m much more nornal than he!

    Reply
  37. Deb

    I was quite irritated at my future husband when we first met… he sat behind me in a design class and kept kicking my chair. He phoned me a few days later, the same night that I had broken up with a long-time boyfriend, and offered to come over so that I could cry on his shoulder. He came and never left. We became engaged 2 weeks later and married 6 months later. It has been 36 years of “rebound love” – lol!
    Lots of fun reading everyone’s love stories!
    Deb

    Reply
  38. Star

    In church. My first line to him: “Oh, you’re one of those….” 🙂 A match made in heaven and it will be 10 years this coming Saturday.

    Reply
  39. Karin

    Everyone’s stories sound so sweet and romantic. I met my husband where we both worked. I was the kitchen design coordinator and he worked at the contractor counter of a building supply company in Massachusetts. Actually, I was technically engaged to someone else. But, since the someone else was sneaking about behind my back, I dumped him and the rest is history. Well, 27 years of it anyway. 🙂

    Reply
  40. carol

    I was a high school sophomore and he was a senior. We met at a friend’s party. He called me up for a date and we had a car accident on our very first date. We didn’t see one another again for a whole year.
    We got together again where we both had part-time jobs working at the same five & dime store. We went on dates and he would drive me home from work. He first proposed when I was sixteen and even asked my father if he could marry me. Considering our ages I think my father was more amused than anything.
    After dating off and on for five plus years and him being away in the army we realized on one of his Christmas leaves that we couldn’t live without one another any longer and decided we would get married in Germany where he was serving.
    It was very romantic and has
    now been forty-eight years. We still have the many letters we exchanged in which we expressed our longing to be together.

    Reply
  41. Barbara Sydney Australia

    I found an old letter amongst some deceased estate ephemera I bought at a local market. In the letter, written in 1930 here in Sydney, the writer Ted explained to Grace, to whom the letter was written that he felt he could no longer call on her as he is on the verge of bankruptcy( the Great Depression) and not worthy of her even though he loved her dearly.
    It is the saddest letter and I am determined to find out whether they ever finally got together or if she kept the letter till her death because of unrequited love. So so romantic!
    Barbara

    Reply
  42. Isa

    This was lovely. I’m such a romantic, and I’d love to have a stack of letters like that!
    I met my husband at the museum where I worked. He was here visiting his brother, and while his brother worked, he toured the city and we briefly spoke while he visited the museum. After that, he brought a picnic lunch each day and invited me to join him on the benches. A week later, he was gone – 2000 miles away. 2 months after that, he moved out here and made a life for himself which included me! The next year we were married, which was over a decade ago!
    xo Isa

    Reply
  43. SweetPeaSurry

    That was truly lovely.
    I’m currently unmarried, however, I met my current beau on the internet.
    I was chatting in a room and discussing the problem with welfare (vehemently). He and I were arguing. I added him to my friends list, because I found his arguments compelling. We starting talking, video-conferencing and such. We’ll be meeting in person the first week of February. Wish me luck!!!

    Reply
  44. Elizabeth Ann

    At a night club…he was playing pool and I was there alone for a drink and a dance. We saw each other when I walked past the pool table to get to the dance floor. He had the most piercing blue eyes. When I finished the dance and he finished the pool game, We spent the rest of the evening together…3 months later we were married and have been together 15 years. When we tell people we met in a bar, everyone is QUITE surprized that we’ve lasted this long!!
    Thanks for bringing back these memories!

    Reply
  45. Evelyn

    We met in 1999 when I posted a personal ad on yahoo.com and he answered my ad. Even though he lived in New York City and I lived in Rochester, New York, we dated long distance for 2 years. I then moved to New York City when my son graduated from high school. We got married in January, 2005. Knowing my husband as I do now, I am still surprised that he even answered my personal ad. We believe prayers from a friend of my husband are what brought us together.

    Reply
  46. stljoie

    In my grandmothers trunk…which I finally got about a year ago when my Aunt Edna entered a nursing home….was full of letters and pictures. There is a packet of love letters, tied with ribbon, to my aunt from her lost love. I just cannot bring myself to open them and read them while she lives. I just can’t intrude into here life.

    Reply
  47. Di Overton

    He used to do all my advertising. Bet no one else can say that 🙂
    Happy 2009 (I have written a post on how to survive it)
    Hugs
    Di

    Reply
  48. Sugar

    We met the very first day at college 31 years ago. We were sitting on a sofa – he at one end and I at the other – sitting quietly while all around us was a sea of excited deaf students signing and we knew not one sign. I had long, blonde hair down to my waist and he had a shy twinkle in his eyes. So we asked each other “Do you sign?” and we found a common ground since neither of us signed. We’ve been married 27 years. His favorite memory is the Forth of July weekend that summer as we watched the fireworks show.

    Reply
  49. christine

    On a junk in Hong Kong – where else would you look for a French winemaker ?

    Reply
  50. Mary Kate

    In an Irish pub. I said, do you know the Irish pub across from the cathedral, and he said, yes, but I’ve never been there. I said, let’s meet there, at one of the tables in front.

    Reply
  51. le petit cabinet de curiosites

    Internet is full of surprise ….

    Reply
  52. stljoie

    I volunteered in a homeless shelter for men and my husband was working there and still does. I went on to do street outreach and also worked in a domestic violence shelter We share a commitment to reach out to those in crisis, especially those living with mental illness. We will be married 19 years in April. I am very happy.

    Reply

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