You Are So Many Miles Away

You are so many miles away,
And yet so close, My Dear.
I cannot quite just understand,
That you really are not here.
I do not try to understand,
I am much too glad, you see,
That things are now just as they are,
and wish that they could always be!
(1928)

This poem was dated May 28, 1928. I don’t know if this is a love poem written to dad during their long distance courtship when he was in Boston and she still back in Minnesota. I don’t think it could be. They met on a blind date, but I think it was a year later in 1929.They weren’t married until June 16, 1930, two years after this poem was written. The poem may, therefore, have been written to a family member, probably one of her sisters, or could just be mom playing with the sentiments and words of love. Regardless, this is an expression of real love. Mom has shifted in these eight lines from a level of wishing things were other than they are to accepting, even embracing them, at a higher, deeper level, as they really are….true love that knows no boundaries, no distance, no miles, no time. This is a statement of a transcendent, mature love, which, at age 25, is pretty remarkable.