Ducky: Life Letters
Phyllis and Donald started exchanging letters as early as 1938. They had been dating for about a year. Hundreds were written and exchanged, laden with laughter and love, promise and fear and eternal hope, through to Donald’s untimely and heartbreaking death on April 30, 1945, just a mere ten days before VE Day in Europe.
These letters comprise the essence of this story through which I have struggled to make the conversation real, meaningful and enduring. My palpable challenge came when I realized very early that most of Phyllis’ (Mom’s letters) had been destroyed.
My intent, again, for this project was to create a story: a conversation between two young people decidedly in love, recently married, with plans for a future together...but separated by preparations for war and war itself. In one of his letters, Donald (Dad) said that his company's constant movement across Canada and the lack of safe storage, forced him to burn the letters from Phyllis. Few survived. You, the reader, should know this.
Michael W. Dymond
Michael’s home is in Chatham, Ontario, Canada where he grew up in a post war environment with a sister and two half-brothers. He and his sister, Margo, were among the many young victims of this war having lost their father in its closing days.
The loss of a husband, even under the accepted strain of a world war, is a devastating and difficult burden for a young mother of two. Grandparents took on a larger role in the developing lives of Michael and his sister who knew their father only through treasured pictures in the family album. Their mother’s mother, Nanna, in whose home they were raised, took on a more direct role in their growth and was responsible for the introduction of life’s morals and values.
Michael chronicled ten years of his and his sister’s youth in his first attempt at writing, ‘It’s Just About Me, 23 Dover Street’, which was published in 2004. Always enjoying the activity of ‘note making’ he has continued to write and has produced a collection of his notes in ‘The Sail Needs the Wind’, which was inspired by ‘Notes to Myself’ by Hugh Prather.
Post-secondary education took Michael away from Chatham in 1963. The following forty-two years, thirty of which were spent working in local government also included employment in the manufacturing industry, the not-for-profit sector and two amazing years in Mexico. Michael has a loving daughter from his first marriage and three beautiful granddaughters. His second relationship includes an additional daughter, son, one additional granddaughter and two grandsons, all of whom have brought much meaning to his life. Returning to Chatham in 2005, Michael continued to make notes and planned to complete further writing projects. He, with his very best friend, love, and wife Mary, after spending sixteen wonderful years in Tucson Arizona, now reside permanently in London, Ontario, Canada.