Letter to her son, with all her heart

Dear Patrick,
(No. Scrap that)

My dearest Patrick,
(Yes, that's how I would start things off. Like that)

I am writing this to let you know how happy I am
(- hang on, do I say how happy I am, or how happy we are? I'm writing for the both of us. How happy we are? Okay)

I am writing this letter to let you know how happy we are to be here, at the Yankee Hotel once again, reliving our honeymoon, thirty-five years since we first came here. I can't believe you managed to even get us the same room! What a delight it was to walk back through the doors of room 340 again after so long.
(We would have told you this was the room number, because your brother, Nicky, knows this was the room number also)

The room itself looked quite different. For starters, the decor was much more modern - which was to be expected, of course. But the room also seemed smaller. This is not a bad thing, still plenty of room for us two. Instead it just goes to show how memory can make things seem so much more grand than they are.

When we booked the room all those years back, we had no money, so your father asked for the cheapest room with the best view. Never one to mince his words, your father.
(you would no doubt have a story or two by now of how your father had caused you great embarrassment over the years, Patrick. Probably much the same as your brother has such stories, especially as a teenager when people can be so sensitive and everything seems so loud and up against you)

Well, the view from room 340 was magnificent back then, and it is still magnificent today. You can see right along the river. Ferries silently gliding alongside each other in the distance. The sunset fills the room with a gentle amber still, just as it did back then.

We ate breakfast and dinner on the balcony each day we were here, in silence, but so happy. I haven't seen your father this content for some time.

And do you know what we did each evening after dinner, Patrick?
(Did we ever teach Nicky the dance moves? I think I remember teaching him them. I did tell him about the dance, I know that)

We went into the dining hall, where the band had started up, and we did the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Yes, after all these years, we still remembered the exact moves.

Sadly, nobody working at the hotel today knew the moves. They said they had heard of it, this dance, invented here, at the Yankee Hotel. I told them about how there had been evening classes on a Monday and a Wednesday, where people from all over town came and did the dance here, in this very dining hall. I told them how most of the tables were cleared to the side of the room between half seven til ten, and people danced the evening away.

I said how we had managed to be here for lessons on the Monday and Wednesday of our honeymoon, and we loved it. We never forgot the moves.

We ended up teaching the steps to two lovely young people who work there today, and they said they would look into setting up the classes again.
(Patrick, there are no secrets between a mother and her son. I would have loved you, but I would have somehow loved you even more for doing this, for setting up this second honeymoon for us. As if there were new reservoirs of love that I never knew I had)

The plane journey home was a little turbulent, but it was alright. I didn't feel that I was going to die this time. I was too happy for that, and it made me brave. Your father was asleep right the way through, though. Missed his evening meal, which made him a little grump right after he woke.
(No surprise there, you'd probably say to this. No surprise there!)

But, yes, all in all, it was wonderful, and in many ways even more wonderful than our actual honeymoon.

Thank you, son, for the time of our lives,
(Do you agree with that, or should that be the holiday of our lives? Little too game show-y? I agree.
But, anyway, that's how I would word this letter anyway.
This is how the letter to you would be worded, Patrick.
This is how the letter would read if you had been around to read it.
This is how a letter would have been worded by this mother to her son, her youngest twin by nineteen minutes.
And with all her heart)


your loving Mom and Dad.