And I Always Will

October 17, 1946
D’Arline,
I adore you, sweetheart.
I know how much you like to hear that — but I don’t only write it because you like it — I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you.
It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you’ll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic;  and I thought there was no sense to writing.
But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past.  I want to tell you I love you.  I want to love you.  I always will love you.
I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me.  I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you.  I never thought until just now that we can do that.  What should we do.  We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector.  Can’t I do something now?  No.  I am alone without you and you were the “idea-woman” and general instigator of all our wild adventures.
When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed.  You needn’t have worried.  Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much.  And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there.  You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive.
I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don’t want to be in my way.  I’ll bet you are surprised that I don’t even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years.  But you can’t help it, darling, nor can I — I don’t understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don’t want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes.  You only are left to me.  You are real.
My darling wife, I do adore you.
I love my wife.  My wife is dead.
Rich.
PS  Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don’t know your new address.
[The above letter was written by Dr. Richard Feynman.  To quote the origin site / blog:  “In June of 1945, his wife and high-school sweetheart, Arline, passed away after succumbing to tuberculosis.  She was 25-years-old.  16 months later, in October of 1946, Richard wrote his late wife a heartbreaking love letter and sealed it in an envelope.  It remained unopened until after his death in 1988.“
Disclaimer:  The above (letter and quote) are posted here on my site without prior permission or approval by either the originating site or whomever may own the rights to the actual letter.  My posting is being done without claim of ownership and without any attempt to solicit or obtain monetary compensation for myself.  I just think both the letter and the site deserve a wider distribution and this is my small effort to “spread the word”.  If either the letter owner or the originating site object to my post and request removal of this post, I will, of course, comply.
Found on one of the blogs I follow:  Letters of Note
The specific post is located at:  https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/i-adore-you-sweetheart
Please visit the original site if you have a few minutes.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
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2021	Some Doctors Are Better Than Others
	Lessons
2020	A Liar As President Corrupts Us
2019	Is It Dark And Quiet For You?
2018	Undeniable Requirement
2017	Orange Corrosion
2016	Both Particle And Wave
2015	Deep In Debt
2014	The Difference
2013	My Heart Is Described
2012	Keen To Be Alone
2011	The Ideal Business…
2010	55