From Martha To Ernest

Mislaid during our moves, the stars aligned in time to help me locate my stash of John Julius Norwich's Christmas Crackers in time for the holidays, and while I do not believe in coincidences, a day after visiting Nancy Gellhorn's St. Louis neighborhood I came across this snippet of a letter Martha wrote to Ernest, reprinted in the 2011 edition Christmas Cracker.


28 June 1943

Ernest:
I wish we could stop it all now, the prestige, the possessions, the position, the knowledge, the victory: and that we could by a miracle return together under the arch at Milan, with you so brash in your motor cycle side car and I badly dressed, fierce, loving, standing in the street waiting for your picture to be taken.  My god, how I wish it.  I would give every single thing there now is to be young and poor with you.  As poor as there was to be, and the days hard but always with that shine on them that came of not being sure, of hoping, of believing in fact in just the things we now so richly have.
                                                                                      Martha


I bet many agree with Martha's sentiments. The early struggle, the belief in yourself and your partner's future, is often more fun than having arrived.

Toad