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After the Apocalypse
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Dear Sarah

Jennifer E. Lee

    January 11, 1833

    Dear Sarah,

    I am not a rich man by inheritance. I am just a humble man coming from humbling beginnings. I suppose I have always been searching for something more all my life. What that is, I couldn’t tell you. I just know that I want something more out of life and won’t rest until I find it.
    My life changed the day I met you. You were beautiful and fresh, like a newly opened flower. In a rush of maybe ignorance and lust, I married you and the struggle of a newly emerging family began. I say lust, for reasons you already know, and ignorance because I always merely needed to take care of myself. Now I am responsible for your happiness and the welfare of our future children.
    In just three short days it will be the anniversary of our wedding and I cannot think of anything but you. Work is going well and I think we are making progress toward our financial gains. I miss you every moment we are apart, but know that this time spent is not for nothing. What keeps me going is the thought of our future life. I want our children to grow up not as you or I, but better. I suppose all parents want what is better for their children, but I also want what is better for you, for us.
    I wonder if the receipt of my letter fills you with joy. Life has not been so precious without you near and I desperately await our reunion. I know that your father’s expectations of me may have provoked a fire inside that seeks to spread, but I wish we could be together. I wonder sometimes how our life might have been had we never met. Silly, I know, but with so much time to think, my mind starts wandering to the far corners of my imagination.
    Simple thoughts breed simple action. You know I am not a simple man with simple intentions, but an eager gentleman with much to share with the world. I am not selfish, but wish to better my life for you and the future of our family. I too wish that life on your father’s farm had worked out better for us, but maybe this is for the best.
    Do you long for me because you miss my company? Oh, I wish you would plainly say it in your glorious voice I miss so. We are married and should be willing to be as frank as possible with one another. Please be frank with me and I will do the same. I cannot bear to write back and forth sometimes as we do when I cannot see your face or touch your skin to feel what you are really feeling, to sense what it is that you are thinking. Hold fast to our love, Sarah. Don’t give up on me just yet.
    I write this because I fear sometimes that you may be losing faith in our relationship. I know you may think I am going mad, but living without you sometimes can be quite trying on my soul. I cannot but think that maybe this was a poor choice of work. I need to find a way to prove to you that you married a worthy man. It chills me to the bone to think that your love cools for me.
    I have to think that it will only be a few months until I can settle here with you and we can start our family. I see things each day with the coal barge that can be improved. I am a man of invention and innovation. Or, even if not yet, I would like to think of myself as such. I do want to contribute my thoughts, but many of the others don’t care to visualize. They want to complete an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. I know that I need to take charge of my own destiny. I shall save enough money to buy my own way one day.
    I look in the mirror and see a face I do not know sometimes. Do I want to be the creator of my fortune or the sheep that follows the rest of the herd? I envision a house, not like the house in which I grew up, but a house of magnanimous proportions. It will have great peaks and stained glass windows. It will overlook the town as if to suggest superiority and regal blood. The opulence of the structure will be obvious of my success in life and your father will know that he made the right decision for his daughter. I want to contribute to the town in any way I can. My children will know a better future than that which I lived. A carpenter may be an honest profession, but is it noble? Is it worthy of wealth and power?
    I hope this letter finds you well, my love. Take care of your family and wish them the best from me. I am making my way in this world and am commissioned until the spring. At that time, I promise to be settled here and bring you to live here with me so that we may start our life together on better financial terms than the farm would have offered us. Be patient, darling, and know that all is well.
    I do not say this with regret, as you might gather from a letter, for you cannot hear my tone and see the glint in my eye as I write. It fuels my inner desire to achieve greatness. Maybe this was what I was seeking all along. To be given a reason to rise to the top is no small matter, but I will do it graciously.
    I see us in the future together. We are older and wonderfully successful. I no longer need to work as hard as I am and you have the luxury of all the things you could ever dream for in life. Our children are healthy and constantly loved. I know you will be a wonderful mother someday.
    I know that my wages as a carpenter or a farmer will not sufficiently support our budding family, so I that is why I seek work elsewhere. This is the beginning of a new way of life here. I am now working as a captain for a coal barge on the canal. Days are rough with tireless work, but the nights are even harder as I am away from your warm touch and loving embrace.
    While from the winter to the spring, we will be apart, but know that we will be reunited soon. I will bring you into a much more fertile situation where our financial stability will allow you to enjoy all the pleasures that life may offer you. Married, but distant, I hope to enliven our love through letters like these. I don’t yet know if I would be here where I am today if it were not for you and your undying appreciation and love for me. What you see in me, I couldn’t tell you, but I know that my love for you grows stronger every minute that we are apart. What once was an empty feeling inside grows full with the love I hold for you, dear Sarah, my dear wife. Sarah, darling, beloved, this is for you. It is all for you.
    It was just four short years ago that you and I married. I was only twenty-three and you were just twenty-five. Thinking of our nuptials reminds me of when we met and just how beautiful I found you. I had traveled from my family’s home in Connecticut looking for work in New York as a carpenter after apprenticing with my cousin for a short time. After that unsuccessful trip, I ventured to Virginia where I found your family’s farm. Your father was looking for a farm hand and I needed a job.
    I remember seeing you there on the farm, your brown hair gleaming in the sunlight looked almost red from the sun’s rays. I was dumbstruck and didn’t know what to say to you, but I knew that I wanted to be around you as much as possible. Eventually, those warm summer nights led to conversations about everything and nothing. I just loved to listen to you talk and to hear your voice sing in my ears. We would discuss all sorts of things, but what I remember most is the way your nose would scrunch slightly when you got excited about something.
    You would always tell me, “Slow down, John. This is not a race. This is life and we must pace ourselves lest that will to work, that fire to produce burns out prematurely.”
    I would just chuckle, “Impossible,” as you smiled at me and shook your head.
    I have kept that gusto for work and life that I always had. I want to reach the top and I want to reach it with you.

    Lovingly,
    John



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