Love From The Pages: The Notebook: Letter 3

Cover page of The Notebook

The Notebook is a 1996 romantic novel by American novelist Nicholas Sparks, The novel was later adapted into a popular film of the same name, in 2004. The Indian Bollywood film, Zindagi Tere Naam, starring Mithun Chakraborty, is also based on it.

Noah and Allie are meeting, again, after a 14-year separation, which followed their brief but passionate summer romance. Later in the story, Noah reveals to the audience that he is reading to his wife (a notebook and letters), who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and does not recognize him.

This letter was written by Allie to Noah. Allie had asked Noah to write letters to each other and to read it to her during her time as a Alzheimer patient (in Alzheimer the person loses his/her memory). The letters and the notebook serve as medium for the couple to reunite despite the bounds of disease.

THE NOTEBOOK

-by Nicholas Sparks

Dear Noah,

I write this letter by candlelight as you lie sleeping in the bedroom we have shared since the day we were married. And though I can't hear the soft sounds of your slumber, I know you are there, and soon I will be lying next to you again as I always have. And I will feel your warmth and your comfort, and your breaths will slowly guide me to the place where I dream of you and the wonderful man you are.
I see the flame beside me and it reminds me of another fire from decades ago, with in your soft clothes and you in your jeans. I knew then we would always be together, even though I wavered the following day. My heart had been captured, roped by southern poet, and I knew inside that it had always been yours. Who was I to question a love that rode on shooting stars and roared like crashing waves? For that is what it was between us then and that is what it is today.
I remember coming back to you the next day, the day my mother visited. I was so scared, more scared than I had ever been because I was sure you would never forgive me for leaving you. I was shaking as I got out of the car, but you took it all away with your smile and the way you held your hand to me. "How 'bout some coffee," was all you said. And you never brought it up again. In all our years together.
Nor did you question me when I would leave and walk alone the next few days. And when I came in with tears in my eyes, you always knew whether I needed you to hold me or to just let me be. I don't know how you know, but you did, and you made it easier for me. Later when we went to the small chapel and traded our rings and made our vows, I looked in your eyes and I knew I had made the right decision. But more than that, i knew I was foolish for ever considering someone else. I have never wavered since.
We had a wonderful life together, and I think about it a lot now. I close my eyes sometimes and see you with speckles of gray in your hair, sitting on the porch and playing guitar while little ones play and clap to the music you create. Your clothes are stained from hours of work and you are tired, and though I offer you time to relax, you smileand say," that's what I am doing right now." I find your love for our children very sensual and exciting." You're a better father thanyou know," I tell you later, after are sleeping.
I love you for many things, especially your passions, for they have always been those things which are most beautiful in life. Love and poetry and fatherhood and friendship and beauty and nature. And I am glad you have taught the children these things, for I know their lives are better for it. They tell me how special you are to them, and every time they do, it makes me feel like the lukiest woman alive.
You have taught me as well, and inspired me, and supported me in my painting, and you will never know how much t has meant to me. My works hang in museums and in private collections now, and though there had been times when I was frazzled and distracted because of shows and critics, you were always there with your kind words, encouraging me. You understood my need for my own studio, my own space, and saw beyond the paint on my clothes and in my hair and sometimes on the furniture. I know it was not easy. It takes a man to do that, Noah , to live with something like that. And you have. For fourty - five years now. Wonderful years.
You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoty the most. I treasured each side, just as I have treasured our life together. You have something inside you, Noah, something beautiful and strong. Kindness, that's what I see when I look at you now, that's what everyone sees. Kindness. You are the most forgiving and peaceful man I know . God is with you, He must be, for you are the closest thing to an angel that I've evr met.
I know you thought me crazy for making us write our story before we finally leave our home, but I have my reasons and I thank you for your patience. And though you asked, I never told you why, but now I think it is time you know.
We have lived a lifetime most couplesnever know, and yet when I look at you, I am frightened by the knowledge that all this will be ending soon. For we both know my prognosis and what it will mean to us. I see your tears and I worry more about you than I do about me, because I fear the pain I know you will go through. There are no words to express my sorrow for this, and I am at a loss for words.
So I love you so deeply, so incredibly much, that I will find a way to comeback to you dispite my disease, I promise you that. And this is where the story comes in. When I am lost and lonely, read htis story- just as you told it to the children- and know that in some way, I will realize it's about us. And perhaps, just perhaps, we will find a way to be together again.
Please don't be angry with me on days I do not remember you, and we both know they will come. Know that I love you, that I always will, and that no matter what happens, know I have led the greatest life possible. My life with you.
And if you save this letter to read again, then believe what I am writing for you now. Noah, wherever you are and whenever this is, I love you. I love you now as I write this, and I love you now as you read this. And I am so sorry if I am not able to tell you. I love you deeply, my husband. You are, and always have been my dream.

Allie

Nicholas Charles Sparks (born December 31, 1965) is an American novelist, screenwriter and producer. He has published eighteen novels and two non-fiction books. Several of his novels have become international bestsellers, and eleven of his romantic-drama novels have been adapted to film with multimillion-dollar box office grosses including THE NOTEBOOK.