It was a story of a mother’s love that endured even after her death.
Years ago, Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee made a promise to his wife, Elizabeth, as she was dying of cancer.
She would type letters to their daughter and he would deliver them to her every year on her birthday.
There were 13 of them, and Rebekah Gee, now 34, was 17 when she received the first one.
By the time she was 17, she was in college and was living away from home.
The letters were yearly reminders of her mother’s death but also contained Elizabeth’s hopes for her daughter’s future. Not all of those high expectations have been met.
Her mother expected her to marry a Mormon man. The man she met and later married was not.
However, the letters were also an effort to help Rebekah understand what her mother had experienced at the same age.
“It was a both selfish and unselfish act,” she said. “I felt like I was loved.”
Rebekah said that her mother dealt with her illness in a positive way and that it was “a beautiful thing that she did.”
A final letter was supposed to have been sent to her on her wedding day. For some reason, the letter disappeared, and Rebekah never got it. There is no explanation why she did not receive it.
Delivering the letters was difficult for her father, Rebekah said.
“I never considered how hard it was for him,” she said.
As she’s gotten older, it is something she has come to understand.
The yearly lessons Gee learned from her mother were through one-sided conversation, which made learning them that much more difficult.
“Every kid has to struggle with what they can learn from their parents – she was having the conversation in the most peculiar way,” said David Segal, a New York Times reporter who interviewed both Rebekah and President Gee for a radio broadcast on “This American Life.”
“They were just speaking from their heart, and that’s all you could ask for,” Segal said.
Rebekah said she has started writing a book about the letters her mother sent, but so far she does not have a publisher. She started the book three years ago, and for now it’s just a rough draft.
“The transitions of the last two years have made it hard to write,” she said.
Almost two years ago Rebekah lost her husband after a motor scooter accident they were both involved in. She had to recover from the accident both physically and mentally and has moved to New Orleans where she is an assistant professor at Tulane University.
“Life is hard. I’ve had challenges, I’m trying to meet them,” Rebekah said. “I’m very grateful to be alive. I’m trying not to take it for granted.”
A radio broadcast done by “This American Life” about the letters to Rebekah Gee can be found at http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/401/parent-trap.
