Richard Feynman - Letter to Arline After Her Death
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- Опубликовано: 21 фев 2024
- The Talkative Crow reading a letter from Richard Feynman to his wife Arline, 16 months after her death.
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.
Beautiful post and reading. Thank you. May many hear this.
Feynman is one of my heroes, not least for this letter.
Thanks for sharing this. Oh for a love like that! Better to have loved and lost? It is a rare thing to even have the chance to find out...
I remember first reading this years and years ago. I'm not sure my heart has ever fully recovered.
Wow. Made me cry.
I had read some things that Feynman wrote about his life, and it was clear to me that he really loved his wife. I remember that several months after her death that he wrote of seeing a nice dress in a clothing shop window, and thinking to himself "Arline would like this." And then breaking down in tears that he wouldn't be able to give it to her -- it was kind of like he had been numb about her passing until that moment and then it finally hit him hard.
There are some scientists who so completely defy the stereotype that it feels impossible not to feel some sense of connection. Feynman was one of those special few.
beautiful thanks
Glad you liked it!