Berlin, Germany

My father sent me his first handwritten letter at sixty-nine

Dear Delyara, My father never went to school. He can read a little but always signs documents with difficulty. I moved abroad twelve years ago, and our communication has been phone calls and voice messages. Today, I received an envelope from him. Inside was one page written in enormous uneven letters. It took me several minutes to read because spelling wandered everywhere. He had joined an adult literacy class without telling me. The letter said mostly ordinary things: the neighbour’s goat damaged a fence, Mum’s knee hurts, the weather is too hot. At the bottom, he wrote, slowly enough that I could see where the pen had paused: I wanted my words to arrive without somebody else holding the phone. I sat on the floor beside my mailbox and cried. Dad has always been embarrassed when bureaucracy required him to ask another person for help. I never understood how much writing to me mattered. I called him immediately. He became annoyed and said the point of a letter is that I am supposed to write back. So tonight, I am writing one by hand. My handwriting is terrible too. For once, that feels fair.