YOUR TIME OR MINE

YOUR TIME OF MINE

a letter through time

“”” “”” “””

My Dearest Edward,

My goodness! I hope you don’t mind me calling you Edward, after all, we’ve never met.

You might think this is so absurd receiving a letter from someone you don’t know but I can’t seem to help myself where you’re concerned.

I’ve read your poetry and then was compelled to read as much about you as I could find. For instance, I know you were born on April 29, 1906, to May (Waters) and Henry Fitzgerald. Your sister, Sara, is married to William Hodgkins and they have three children whom you totally adored. While you attended Marshall University, your happiest school years were spent while at Longfellow Arts and Sciences where you perfected your art of writing.

Oh, how I would have totally enjoyed sharing your adventures with you during that time! You see, I also love writing, especially poetry. Reading your work opened my eyes to a broader way of crafting my words, not just to make the reading of them easier and more emotional but also to cast a lingering impression on the reader. I wish I could send you some of my work for your opinion.

It saddened me to learn of your passing in 1936. Such a young age when you should have been enjoying every breath! You never took the time to find a wonderful wife and start a family. That is so tragic. In my heart, I have wanted to be there with you while the sickness ravaged your body. If the knowledge and power to heal you had been mine, I would have moved heaven and earth to do so. Lacking the power and knowledge, I would have been happy to sit by your side, day and night and hold your hand until the very end.

This will, undoubtedly, sound preposterous to you but after reading your writings and about your life, I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with you. Oh, Edward, how I long to go back through time and find a way into your heart. I would love to feel your arms around me while you hold me in a loving embrace. I dream of how I would feel to have your beautiful lips on mine.

Then I awaken only to find that, once again, I’ve dreamed a hopeless dream.

Reading this, you might be wondering what kind of blithering idiot would write a letter to someone who left the earth before she was even born. Yes, that’s right my love. I had only taken my first breath in 1993 but to me, age doesn’t matter. It’s the heart that does. I also know that fate has someone out there for me but until he knocks on my door and says, “Hello, my darling Elizabeth,” I belong to you.

Perhaps I’ve lost my mind to a fantasy that will never come true, but it is my fantasy and while dreams never hurt anyone, I am thoroughly enjoying my dreams of you and how our lives might have been had I been alive during your era. Can you just picture it, Edward? If we’d met, married and produced children? We’d have had a boy whose sandy hair and hazel eyes were so much like yours. If we would have been blessed enough to have a daughter, she might have had blonde hair and blue eyes, like mine but just imagine a girl with your sandy hair and my blue eyes. Oh, Edward, what a beauty she would have been.

This sounds so bizarre but after reading your writings, I know you would feel the same as I do. We’d live in a beautiful, but small house by the sea. We both love the sound of the water as it crashes on the shore. We both enjoy the salty scent of the ocean as the moon’s tide has it rise and ebb.

By now, you must be thinking about our different time periods. Would we live in yours? Mine? Could we time travel and live in both? That was a truly absurd thing to say. Time travel? Really? Maybe I have lost my mind. But in my fantasy, we’d live in your world. I promise you, I would adapt beautifully to living without all the modern conveniences. Admittedly, it might take a small while to learn everything, but learn, I would! I would make you the best wife imaginable.

Earlier, I dined with my sister, Kate and we both enjoyed plates of fish and chips. While Kate drank her usual Guinness, I opted for a glass of white wine. We laughed about some of my writings, and she wondered how my mind was able to wander into a great abyss and pull out stories that I can clearly envision. As of this letter I’m writing, I have not yet told her of my fantasy about you. I’m not quite sure how she might think of me if I did.

I can’t help, now but wonder what to do with this letter once I finish it. I certainly can’t mail it. Perhaps, I’ll just store it among my writings and who knows? Maybe, years from now, when my life is over, my family will read this, wonder who you are and why you’ve so completely captivated my heart and mind. It will be a mystery for them to try and solve. What fun that will be for them.

In the meantime, my love, I will end this letter and boil water for a soothing cup of tea. Maybe I’ll even treat myself to one of my scones. What flavor, you ask? Cranberry and walnut. It was my grandmother's recipe. I know you would love them as much as I do.

Until it’s time once again to close my eyes for the night, I’ll say goodnight, my love. I’ll see you in my dreams.

Love always,

Your Elizabeth.

Footnote:

Elizabeth sighed, carefully folded her letter, and placed it in an envelope to store in her box of writings.

She heard a gentle knock on her apartment door.

Opening the door, she stood in complete shock when she looked into the beautiful hazel eyes she’d been dreaming about and heard, “Hello, my darling, Elizabeth.”