Essay 9

  

 A Love, A Distance, A Return:

An Essay About The Poem “Letter Home” And How It Relates To My Life

Pine Point School

Ninth Grade English

February 8, 2012

By Schyler Davis  

Have you ever been away from someone who you love, who you can’t live without, who is the meaning of your life? In the poem, “Letter Home”, by Ellen Steinbaum, she writes about a man in the military, who has an unstoppable love for his wife and child. I can relate to this poem because I was away from my parents over the summer. You can’t stop love, contain love, or forget about love.

The poem, “Letter Home”, is about a love that is so strong, a love where distance doesn’t matter, a love that will last forever. The poem is gripping because you can the fathers passion. I like how the child can sense how her or his mother feels and can see the pain that she has to go through since her husband is in the military. Having this poem being told from a child’s point of view, shows me how the child also misses her or his father.  When her husband comes home “ they will pick up their interrupted lives,” and continue their life from before. To me, it’s amazing how distance didn’t change the way they love each other, didn’t change the way they live their life, didn’t cause any awkwardness to form. Their love seems like the love everybody wants; the kind of love where writing love letters is natural, thinking sweetly of each other is enjoyable, and being able to stay together through distance is possible. In my opinion, this poem tells a love story about two people that will never let distance stop them from loving each other, and about a child who adore her or his parents.

I can relate to the poem, “A Letter Home”, and how I visited Virginia for a week during the summer without my parents. Although,my longing to be with my parents was not as strong as the soldier’s to be with his family, I still missed them. Calling them everyday, chatting my dad on Facebook, and looking through family pictures on my camera helped me feel close to them though. I was only away from my mom and dad for a week, which isn’t even close to how long the husband in the poem was away from his wife and child. I enjoyed all the time I spent in Virginia with my aunt, uncle, and my cousin, but by the end of the week I was ready to go home. I was nervous though-- nervous to go on a train and nervous to talk to people I didn't know on the train--but when I finally got to my stop, the nervousness vanished. “My mother waits” and my father waits, and my sister waits; I couldn't wait to run up to my mom, dad, and sister to give them all a huge hug. The love I have for my family is unbreakable, just like the love in the poem.

Love comes in many shapes and sizes; you could have love for your partner or for family. In ,“Letter Home”, the man has a love for his wife and child that will never change, and in my life I have a love for my family that will last forever. You should never let distance stop your love; you should never let time stop your love, and you should never let anything get in the way of your love.