Your mother is an idealist, a dreamer. I hope for a perfect world. I see the mistakes I have made (you are NOT one of them) and hope that you will be wiser.

I love you very much, my dearest Sarah, and hope the enclosed picture of me will be enough for you to remember me by. I don’t have much more time to write or room on these pages, so I have to choose only one thing to tell you about. I think I have chosen the most important.

The love between a man and a woman.

Someday you will meet a boy and you will have certain feelings for him, feelings that you’ve never had toward anyone else, and in parts of your body that have never made you aware of them before. You will be young and vibrant and curious about the angles and curves of the male body you have not seen before. His hand in yours will be like music to your soul. Just seeing him walk into a room will cause your heart to beat faster. And when he kisses you, you will feel more alive than you ever have before. The two of you will lay down together, and you will make love, and it will be wonderful. Don’t be afraid to be playful when you do this; but don’t be frightened of baring more than your body to him, either.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that this kind of love-making is dirty. Sex is not dirty in itself, but it can be made dirty by people who don’t value it properly. Treasure your sex, and his, and what they become when the two of them meet. Be truthful, but always remember to keep a private place inside of you just for yourself. Not a “secret” place—that means you are being deceitful—but a private place, a place to know the feeling of yourself, and what it means to be alone, and a woman, walking on two legs instead of four. If he loves you, he’ll understand, because he knows there’ll be a time when one of you will be gone, and what will happen to the one left behind if all of your I’s have always been we’s? Touch each other gently, and always speak truthfully, and remember to treasure every moment that you are together, even the ones that aren’t so great (and there’ll be plenty of those), so when you’re old and the beauty of youth has faded, your love will burn warmly within you, like a candle on a winter’s night, and your memories will hang around your neck like pearls instead of chains.

The life ahead of you will not always be easy, but there will be many joys if your heart is true. I will always regret that we never knew each other, never sat down together for a cup of coffee, never went out and pointed at boys and men we thought were cute, and were never there to hold each other when tears and bad times came along, but I will love you forever, my daughter, my dearest Sarah, and I shall pray that these few scribbled words will help you on your way through life, with hope, smiles, comfort, encouragement, and much, much affection and love.