Old Letters and Memories

My wife has been clearing the clutter in our study room as we planned to have it renovated this summer. She found a few letters that I kept from my friends when we first migrated here in the US. It was letters from about 30 years ago and we were still living in New Jersey at that time.

I nonchalantly told her to toss them out, but she insisted that at the least I look at the letters first, before deciding what to do with them. A few days later when I got the chance, I checked on those letters and read them all again…… and a flood of memories came rushing in.

The letters were from 7 of my friends: 2 were friends from church whom I knew since childhood, 3 were classmates from high school, and 2 from medical school.

I was just starting my life here in the US at that time, trying to fit in to the new country, new environment, new culture, new responsibilities, and new challenges. Being away from my known world, I was badly missing my family, my friends, my home, and the life that I left behind. I must be really feeling lonely and homesick, that I wrote a lot of letters to many of my friends, besides my family. Long before I started writing blogs, I was writing personal letters.

At that time, having a home or personal computer was just starting to become popular, and not everyone can afford it. I know I did not have a home computer at that time, so email was not used that much in personal communication, at least not yet. We’re talking about mid 1990’s.

A long distance call from the US to the Philippines was also prohibitive because of the cost, like $2 for every minute of call. So if I have to make a phone call, I have to limit it to the bare essentials or only if it was life or death situation. Obviously Facebook, Messenger, FaceTime, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Viber, and other communication platforms did not exist yet.

So the most affordable line of communication was through letters or what we refer now as snail mail. For my younger readers who have not done it, or for those who forgot what it was, it was the one that you need real paper and pen, envelop and stamps, and then you have to send through the post office.

A regular airmail in the 1990’s took about 2 weeks or so for the mail to arrive from the US to the Philippines; though if it is to Manila, it may be less than 2 weeks. So if they would answer my letter right away, I’ll get the reply letter in about a month or so.

In the meantime while I was waiting for their response, I kept on reading their last letter and hoping that they would write to me soon.

Can you imagine waiting for a response for a month? This younger generation will never understand what we went through, as now we can send a text message and get a reply instantly.

The anticipation, the expectation, the impatience, the angst, and all other emotions were mixed together while I wait for the next letter. And when I received a new mail, I could not contain my joy and excitement. This would happen over and over again when I received a letter.

It was nice to hear from my friends about what had happened to them and what they were up to. They would update me about our common friends, who got married, who broke up, and who got pregnant or got new baby. They would keep me abreast of the current news in the country, or what was trending and cool. One friend even sent me a couple of cassette tapes of Eraserheads, a band in the Philippines, that was really hot at that time.

Talking about Eraserheads, I learned that they just got reunited, after disbanding several years ago. I treasured those cassette tapes that I have, and played them regularly at that time, as they became some kind of my connection to the Philippines even if I was away. Do you even remember what cassette tapes were?

A couple of my friends perhaps wanted to keep in touch with me to make sure I will not forget them. Or maybe it was my debt to them that they don’t want me to forget. Yes, I owe money to some of them. My family was struggling financially and I was strapped for cash during those times. That economic situation was one reason that pushed me to go abroad.

Good thing though was that borrowing money from my friends did not change my relationship with them. Maybe they were more excited than I was when receiving my letter, as they were hoping I enclosed a check inside. Hah! But I paid my dues through sacrifices and hard work, which God had blessed, to get to where I am now. Paid all my debts too.

After all these years, I still communicate with those friends, but only occasionally now. Most of them are my friends in Facebook, so I would see their status or stalk their page once in a while. I may send or text them a message sporadically like once in a blue moon. But the excitement of hearing from them like before is not the same anymore, like when I was receiving a physical letter from them in those bygone days.

Maybe time and distance had tempered those feelings. Or maybe because we got adapted to living our own separate lives now. Or maybe the appeal and romance of the letters that you can hold in your hands was lost, and that’s why it is not the same.

We have been scattered all over the world by the winds of destiny, including my 7 friends and I – 2 are also here in the US now, but they live more than 1000 miles from me; 1 is in Canada; 1 is in China, 1 is in Australia, and 2 stayed in the Philippines. But we all still live in a place that can be easily reached by postal mail. Unless you live in Denmark, for they became the first country to effectively end traditional, state-run physical letter delivery in late 2025.

During those times that we were sending letters, these men were all busy, as they were working full time jobs, or in some kind of medical training, or were undergoing a challenging transition like me. Yet they did pause for a moment from their hectic schedule, and took time to write these letters, to give happiness to a friend who was alone and who was awfully missing home.

Did I end up getting rid of the letters?

No, I kept them still.