Carmela is my mother. She died in July 2011. I loved her desperately, but we had our struggles. I know she loved me, but she was not demonstrative about it. I think about her every day and try to imagine what she felt and thought. She rarely shared her deepest self with me, or my siblings.

Cleaning out her home, I found a stash of letters she had written to me my junior year of high school. I spent a year in Japan as an exchange student. At that time (late 70's), there was no internet and even a phone call was precious. So we wrote letters. I saved all her letters and brought them home. It seems she kept them, including all my letters to her, for 31 years. I started rereading them the other day and realized how much each letter helped me understand her better. How they explained her philosophy about family and religion. How she tried to teach me lessons.

I will try and share a letter a day, most from my mother, but some from other family members and some from me to her. It's my way of finding her again, or maybe finding her for the first time.