New tenants find old letter lodged in their ceiling and reunite a widower with his wife's words
The letter arrived right before Mother's Day, making it more special for the ones she left behind
The art of letter writing is slowly fading in today's world of emails and texting, which makes stories like this feel even more special. A while ago, CNN reported how Allen Cook and his daughter, Melissa, came across something unexpected while renovating their home in Westfield. Tucked inside a crack in the ceiling was a handwritten letter — a token of love that had been hidden for 72 years.
Words that fell through the crack
On May 13, 2017, in an interview with CBS, Allen revealed that the letter had yellowed over the years but remained unopened. When Melissa's husband read the letter, he found that a woman named Virginia Christoffersen had written it for her husband, Rolf Christoffersen, talking about their unborn child. She also spoke about her love for her husband. Here is an excerpt from the letter, dated May 3, 1945: "I love you, Rolf, as I love the warm sun, and that is what you are for my life, the sun about which everything else revolves for me." Rolf was serving in the Norwegian Army as a sailor at the time. The letter never reached him and had a 'return to sender' mark.
Google to the rescue
The Cooks wanted to reunite the Christoffersens with the letter, so they searched for them and found Rolf's 66-year-old son, who was living in Santa Barbara, California. Luckily, he shared the same name as his father. "Someone called me at my office. They just Googled my name because I have the same name as my father. Melissa asked me where I grew up and I told her. She told me she had the letter. This is how I found out," he revealed to CNN.
Hearing her words after 72 years
Virginia's husband was still alive when the Cooks reunited their son with her letter. Rolf was 96 years old at the time, and heard the words his wife had written for him as his son narrated it on a phone call. "I was so surprised after all these years. I was very happy to find out that a letter like that existed. I am still very emotional," he told the news outlet. The letter meant a lot to the Christoffersens since Virginia passed away 6 years ago.
A Mother's Day surprise
The Christoffersens received the letter right before Mother's Day. With Virginia gone, the decades-old letter was extremely meaningful for them. Her son was crying when he read the letter, and said, "It’s Mother’s Day and reading her words reminded me just what a wonderful person she was and how much she loved us." It was presumed that the letter fell through a crack in the house upstairs where the Christoffersens used to live.
Why letters like this feel rare today
As mentioned, very few people write letters today. A CBS News survey conducted in 2021 showed that only 31% of the respondents wrote a letter in 2020, and 35% received a personal letter the year before. On the other hand, 15% of the participants had never written a personal letter, and 14% had never received a personal letter. Surprisingly, the youngest people in the study (18-44 years) wrote more letters (34%) than the elderly (33%). Virginia's letter was written decades ago, but nonetheless, her words remained special for her son and husband, years after she had passed.
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