Standing at one of the long tables in the Landrum Hall Post Office, it's the first letter I've received.
Everything else has been junk from the school, banks and Churches recruiting lonely first year college students.
But this is a real letter!
Ripping it open, I read the one page completely covered in blue ink ... front and back ... with only 9 words.
"My Dearest Mike ... I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, love you, I love you ... Your precious Grandma."
All these decades later, I still remember holding her letter ... feeling her love ... salt water welling in my eyes ... completely understanding how precious she is ... carefully folding it back in the same creases she'd folded ... sticking in the right pocket of my blue jeans ... and reading it a hundred times over the next few weeks.
Those first weeks of college were a drunken, party mess!
My best friend in High School ... Gene Prevatt ... and I'd decided to take college by storm and room together.
We had fun.
The only thing I can recall today is introducing "Broom Hockey" to the 3rd floor of the dorm who's name I can't remember.
The Resident Assistant storms out screaming ... but 20 or of us are having a really good time using our brooms to knock the shit out of a tennis ball.
We're freshmen.
He's a Junior ... and a nerd.
We tie him up, put a pillow case over his head and hang him upside down from the water pipes running just below the ceiling in the dorm.
Ah ... good times.
BUT ... lonely times too ... the first time away from home ... so when my precious Grandma Carver sent me that letter ... I knew no matter what ... I'm loved somewhere.
When I went home on weekends, I stopped at my Grandparent's first ... so the next time we sat at the tiny table in the kitchen and I pull out the letter ... and my Grandma starts to laugh.
I start to cry.
"I couldn't think of anything else to say," she explains.
"You said it all Grandma," and I cry like a baby as I hug her.
She's been gone a long time but ... her love remains.
Love never dies the Bible says ... and I've got a Grandmother's love still running through my veins on a sunny day, sitting on the Beloved Back Deck listening to a choir of cicada sing her favorite Hymns.
