Letters

ANAPOLIS, MD
MAY 21
1-AM
1961

Dear Lydia,

I was much disturbed by your lack of confidence in yourself. Do you think your life has ended entirely because you cannot perceive any promise for the future? What talent do you lack that you apparently believe others about you abound in? Or perhaps you think that you suffer by comparison to me. Firstly - my success in high school was the result of social ineptitude - I was a clod with nothing better to do and the satisfaction of grades fed my wounded ego. Not very noble at all!

Oh baby, where are the words to soothe! You are still so full of life! You are young and healthy and very pretty. Bus drivers and waiters - strangers in the street - everybody can see it but you. The world lies at your feet and I - the great me - stands with head bowed - very humble and honored that you care for me. And what do I wait for? For the time when you lie close by and speak my name.

Do you now or have you ever thought that this life was meant to be easy? Wishing and caring are not enough. Regret does not help at all. The disappointments are many, the work long and dull and the rewards are few, but so sweet as to make it all worth while. Live, I ask, for a day - and there will be one I promise - when your soul will song.

Across the long miles with hasty scribbles I try to ease the growing pains of one, very precious. for the sake of one who not so long ago cried tears for my pain I ask that you consider these words with the honesty and candor in which they are written.

Love,
Michael.