Love Letters

On April 1, 1942 Victor heeded the call of his country to enlist in the army. He went to Louisville Kentucky where he join up to fight in World War II. For most of the next four years Victor found himself on the battlefields somewhere in the various countries of Europe fighting under the command of General George Patton. He drove an army tank, I guess, thousands of miles. At the end of the Great War his tank rolled across Normandy, through northern France, and into Germany. The mission for him and his comrades was to find allied prisoners of war and set them free.

After the war was over, and he had returned home he found out that one of the soldiers he and his men had rescued was someone he knew. Joe Lloyd Smotherman, his boyhood friend from down on Cooperstown Road, had been captured by the Germans, tortured and left locked up to die along with many other young men. They were left with nothing to eat, and were near death when they were found. That was about the only thing I heard my dad, Victor Brady, talk about relating to his war experiences.

The only thing I know about what my dad went through was what I read in the letters he sent to my mother, Louise. In those letters he spoke of some of the horrible conditions he lived under, as well as some of the horrible things he saw. He spoke of the brutality of war, especially that of the enemy. I could tell, even as I read the letters some 50 years later, how home sick my dad had been, and how he had longed to be home with the girl he loved so much.

My mother kept those letters as long as she lived. After she died I found them hidden away with other items that were dear to her. I had the letters several years before I would read them. Somehow it just didn’t seem right, but finally I decided to go ahead and read them. The letters were in a box, and they had been carefully wrapped in tissue paper. They were neatly tied together with a ribbon. It was obvious they had been read many times, and I’m sure there must have been a lot of my mother's tears spilled on them.

My dad died in 1972 at the age of 54. Thirty-two years later my mother passed away. She never wanted another man. My dad was the only man she ever loved. She missed him very much, and never got over my dad's death. I think those letters from my dad's days in Europe were probably read over and over by my mother years after he died. I know they were very special to her.

My mom and dad were together as husband and wife for only a little over 25 years. My mother died when she was 87; was only married for 25 of those years. But she had another love that saw her through. Her other Love was Jesus. Jesus sent her love letters, and she read them every day. My mother was living proof that Jesus is all any of us need.

Many marriages fail today, and the first thing people do is to try to find someone else. Today some men and women want to seek perverted love and forbidden love in places they should never go, and with those whom God told us never to love in that way. They should read their love letters from Jesus, and understand that he is the only lover they need. His love will satisfy, always! His love is the only love that will complete us and make us whole.