04May08

I’m reading John Adams by David McCullough.  It’s a love story in the truest sense of the term.  These amazing men, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, loved this country in the deepest part of their heart.  They were learned men, (Adams read books in the original Greek), and they were very aware that what they were attempting to do, start a government from scratch, had never been done before.  Not only that, but they knew that if this attempt failed, they would all be hanged as traitors.  It’s a little known fact that after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document was hidden away so no one would know whose signatures were on it.

Well, we all know how it turned out, the British surrendered and the United States of America was born.

But there’s another love story in this book, and it’s the amazing love between John Adams and his wife, Abigail.  They were separated for long stretches of time, the longest when Adams was in France with Jefferson and Franklin trying to get aid from the French.  The letters written back and forth between Adams and his wife are full of such longing for each other, yet the suffering and longing was bearable because they both understood the bigger picture…they were working for freedom from tyranny.

This brings me to the point of this post…the beauty of those letters.  People knew how to write in those days before the telephone and internet.  Let me give you an example.

(Abigail, writing to Adams)

“I have amused myself in reading and thinking of my absent friend, sometimes with a mixture of pain, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes anticipating a joyful and happy meeting, whilst my heart would bound and palpitate with the pleasing idea, and with the purest affection I have held you to my bosom ’til my whole soul has dissolved in tenderness and my pen fallen from my hand.”

Whew!

Later, when Adams was President and nearing sixty years of age, Abigail cautioned him about his health and overdoing it.  His reply:   “If I were near I would soon convince you that I am not above forty.”

Whoa.

It was unthinkable to throw letters away back then, and I’m so happy they didn’t.  What treasures would have been lost.

And so I’m thinking, what am I leaving behind for my children and grandchildren, that they can hold in their hand and say, “This is my mother.  This is my grandmother.”

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