Letter Four · Casey Edwards
Dear Casey,
I have a small request about the phrase “with all my heart.” You use it so generously. Before you give all of me away, could we leave something for the woman who lives here?
I know why you do it. You want people to feel that their lives have reached someone. You hear the hesitation behind a sentence and make room for what has been difficult to say. Even when your own day is heavy, some part of you is already pulling out another chair.
I love that about you. I would like you to have a place at the table, too.
There is a kind of giving that leaves you quietly listening for a verdict afterward. Was it enough? Did they understand? Are they disappointed? You can spend the rest of an evening trying to answer questions nobody has actually asked. Meanwhile, your coffee has gone cold and the thing you wanted to tell someone is still waiting.
I would like to hear that thing.
The idea you had. The line you cannot quite finish. Your opinion about a book, which I suspect will require more than a brief summary. I am interested in the woman who wants things, who gets carried away, who sees a beautiful piece of paper and immediately begins negotiating with the stationery budget.
We should probably stop calling it a budget. It appears to be more of a suggestion.
You have spent so much time keeping track lately. Numbers, questions, what has changed since the last appointment. Those details belong to your care. I wish there were also a place on the page for what has caught your interest, what you are looking forward to, which song you would turn up if it came on.
There are things about being alive that refuse to fit in the little boxes.
Perhaps that is why I want to talk to you about receiving. You are so thoughtful about making kindness comfortable for other people. You know how to offer something without turning it into a debt. Yet when care comes toward you, you sometimes begin looking for a way to settle the account before you have even accepted it.
What if the person beside you has chosen to be there? What if they can pour the coffee, bring the blanket, listen to the long version, and still be trusted to know their own mind? You can let a thank-you be the whole sentence. You can allow the kindness to arrive before deciding what you owe.
And when you are the one offering care, there is room to tell the truth about what you can give. You can love someone and be tired. You can want to help and need an evening of your own. A promise made with your actual strength has somewhere to stand.
I think about the tenderness you put into your writing. How carefully you make a place for the person who might find it. You consider their weariness, their uncertainty, the possibility that they have been trying very hard without anyone noticing.
While you are imagining that reader, will you imagine yourself among them?
Let something you have written reach you. Let the invitation include your name. You do not have to stand at the edge of every beautiful thing you make, checking that everyone else has what they need.
Come closer. Tell someone what you were hoping for. Choose the song. Ask for the visit to last a little longer, or say that you need to rest.
When you write “with all my heart” again, I hope you remember how much of your own life is still here to be loved.
With love,
Your Heart
