Sarah discovered the letters while deep-cleaning her grandmother’s rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn, tucked behind a false panel in the closet. Hundreds of them, all addressed to “The Moon, Via Airmail,” dated from 1969 to last week.
The first one read:
“Dear Moon, They did it. Armstrong walked on you today. I watched it on our new television set. Jimmy says it’s fake, filmed in Hollywood, but I know better. I can see you from my window, and you look different now. Like someone finally understood you’re not just hanging there for decoration. Love, Eleanor.”
Sarah’s grandmother Eleanor had passed two weeks ago, leaving behind the apartment, a collection of vinyl records, and apparently, fifty years of one-sided lunar correspondence.
As Sarah read through them chronologically, she learned about Eleanor’s life in ways the family never knew. Letters about the Vietnam War protests she joined. The night she met her husband at a disco. The day she lost him to cancer. Her thoughts on everything from Watergate to cryptocurrency, from the Challenger disaster to TikTok trends her great-grandchildren showed her.
“Dear Moon, My granddaughter Sarah is struggling with her startup. She works in artificial intelligence, trying to teach machines to think. I told her she should teach them to feel first, but she laughed. You understand though, don’t you? You pull the tides with feeling, not logic.”
Sarah’s eyes welled up. She remembered that conversation, dismissing her grandmother’s advice as old-fashioned.
The recent letters grew shorter, but more urgent:
“Dear Moon, The doctors say I’m losing my memories to dementia. But I remember you. Every night, same window, same face. If I forget everything else, let me remember to write.”
The final letter was dated three days before Eleanor died:
“Dear Moon, Sarah visits tomorrow. I want to tell her about these letters, about how you’ve been my constant friend, my therapist, my witness. But maybe she’ll think I’m crazy. Maybe I am. Or maybe everyone needs someone who just listens without judgment, even if it’s just a rock in space. Thank you for fifty years of silence. It was exactly what I needed.”
Sarah looked out the window of Apartment 4B. The moon hung there, full and bright over the city’s light pollution.
She found her grandmother’s pen and a fresh piece of paper.
“Dear Moon, My name is Sarah. I think we have a lot to talk about.”
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