{"id":5319,"date":"2016-07-17T04:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=5319"},"modified":"2016-07-15T16:10:58","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T23:10:58","slug":"the-letters-my-mom-saved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/philippines\/the-letters-my-mom-saved\/","title":{"rendered":"The Letters My Mom Saved."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Grandma<\/a>

My mom with T<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we lived in the Philippines and later in Vanuatu, I wrote letters to my family every week. And every week after my parents read my letters, Mom filed them away. That\u2019s a lot of letters. Let\u2019s see, fifty-two weeks multiplied by twenty-two years \u2026 Hmm. That adds up to 1144 letters. Subtract a couple of weeks for home leave every two year, and you still have 1122 letters.<\/p>\n

For the past few years all those letters have been sitting, untouched, in my storage room. So why should I read them now? I wrote<\/em> those letters. I lived<\/em> that reality.<\/p>\n

Then it occurred to me that, since I\u2019ve set the first part of my new novel in the Philippines, maybe I should look at them–just to refresh my memory.<\/p>\n

I took a look, and come to find out, there were lots of things I\u2019d forgotten.<\/p>\n

\"C<\/a>

Vancouver airport, C & T heading for departure gate with great-grandma and Sarah<\/p><\/div>\n

First of all, I\u2019d forgotten exactly how much more pleasant airplane travel used to be. In my first letter home, I zeroed in on the third leg of our journey to the Philippines, the flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong. The JAL 747 we flew on was only about one-eighth full.<\/p>\n

We had so much room that T, our one-year-old daughter, stretched out on two seats to sleep. C, our three year old, used two seats to play with the paperdolls the stewardess gave her. (That\u2019s what we called flight attendants in 1971.) R, our baby, slept in a bassinet supplied by the airline and attached to the bulkhead.\u00a0 And my husband and I used one set of seats for eating and another when we wanted to look out the window.<\/p>\n

I did remember that airplane food was better in 1971. The menu I described in my letter confirmed it.<\/p>\n