Greenland postcard I bought in Qaqortoq in July 1999 and sent to my bio-mom. The postcard shows a work from B. Christensen, “Kajakman foran isfjeld.”
My bio-cousin, from my birth mother’s family, just sent me a large batch of letters I had sent to my now-departed bio-mom many, many years ago.
She passed away earlier this year, and he was still cleaning up the remaining items not thrown away. In this batch of past correspondence, all written by my hand, I saw lots of postcards. This postcard is from 25 years ago. She must have tossed what I had sent later, but I have no way to know this.
The stack of long-ago written cards and letters provides a fascinating look into my thoughts and my relationship with this person who was both a stranger and my closest biological relative I was able to get to know after I found my biological families and kin in 1989.
I still send postcards to people I care about. That part of my life and personality has not changed. A postcard provides just enough space to share a deeply personal note about your life and what you are observing and experiencing.
I particularly liked this postcard I had purchased in the Greenlandic city of Qaqortoq in 1999, on one of three trips I took to Greenland between 1998 and 2000.
It brings back a lot of memories.
Those are thoughts of a complex relationship with my late and closest biological kin I only found later in life as a 24-year old-man and what that means to me. They are also recollections of this time in my life when I had very little money. What I had was a lot more derring-do to live life to the fullest and learn first-hand from faraway places that had something to teach me.