Where's Walter?

As everyone who knows me is aware, I am not in a relationship with Walter right now.   In fact, I hadn't been in touch with him in many years.  But last February when I decided to finally write the book about our time together, I felt that I should contact him, to make sure he was still okay with publicizing our private experiences.  But where to start?  I suspected he had retired, but I began by checking the website for Stellenbosch University where he taught for many years.  No luck finding him there!  


On Friday, February 25, 2011, I googled him and found a link with a page devoted to Walter including a fairly recent picture.  He looked much older than I remembered him  naturally, but it had been more than 25 years since I saw him last.  There was also a link to his wife Colleen.  She is an artist who looks like a warm and loving person, the kind of woman I would hope Walter had married. 

Because there was no e-mail address for Walter, I wrote the woman who ran the website, Dr. Rosemarie Breuer.  I explained that I am an old friend of Walter's from the 1980s and wanted to get in touch with him.  I sent the email at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.  A couple of hours later, I had two messages.  Rosie had written back saying that she had forwarded my e-mail to Walter.  Next was an e-mail from Walter, asking, "Mary Dee, is it really you?" 

Later that evening thinking back about receiving his email, I was in tears.  I became very emotional, partly to have made the connection again after so long.  Also his blog with his many photographs showed his life now.  I was so very happy for him, and knew that our decision all those years ago was the right one. He has found and built a lovely life for himself with Colleen.

I wrote Walter back that afternoon explaining about the book and asking again for his permission to use the material. Back in 1984 he had agreed that writing a book based on our letters was a good idea, and he had given me verbal permission to do so, but that was many, many years ago. I felt just in the few days of being so immersed in his writing from back then, that he deserved to grant the go-ahead before I proceeded.  I really didn't know what he would say although I really hoped that he would understand how important it is to share our story.


Here's part of Walter's response in an email entitled "A Box of Letters": 


Hi Mary Dee – so good to hear from you.
There is a box of your letters stowed away in our house in Dorp Street, Stellenbosch. Colleen, when she saw it, commented:  Why do you want to hang on to them? I don’t remember what my answer was, maybe something like:  It is part of my life which I want to go back to one day.  If Colleen had kept a similar stack of letters, I might have said to her:  Keep them safely knotted together for our grand-children and and let them muse one day about our lives. 
   
Letters, to me, are pathways to recreate the texture, colour and music of our memories which have either dissipated or have over the years amalgamated into one general picture of feel about things. In letters the very touch of time and moving in it is kept.  Yet, one usually regards such letters, precious as they are, as something one need not go back to for fear of getting lost in reveries or melancholy.  They are treasured moments of life well kept how and where they are.

Yes, you do have my permission to use the material of our letters without any ifs or buts.  It was and will remain a wonderful time of my life.


Walter had not lost his poetic touch!  His email had the style of his letters written to me so long ago.




Future posts:  revisiting the past, plugging gaps in my memory, organizing the letters