Fragile Letters

Letter Edina sent to her friend in South Africa. Courtesy of Sue Benatar.

“I am asking a childish question--and it hurts so much--will I really never be able to see you again? Never, never, for eternity? Not later, not tomorrow, not anytime in the future for the whole of eternity? Is this really true?”

Edina wrote these words with a broken heart to her dear friend. Just recently, in 1939, her best friend went to her husband in South Africa. Though she wished her friend the very best, she couldn't come to terms with the fact that they would be separated by such a vast distance, and that their only communication would be via letters.

Edina didn't entertain hopes of ever seeing her friend again, of ever hearing her voice, of embracing. She couldn't afford distant journeys, and she couldn't allow herself the luxury of horrifically expensive telephone calls, nor could the majority of inhabitants of the shtetl.

“It is tragic and painful when someone is deprived of the freedom or possibility to see and meet their one and only eternal friend,” she said. And truly, the recent virus pandemic showed us how important direct contact with our loved ones is.