What The Correspondent Has Taught Me About Growing Older, Writing, and Living a Meaningful Life
A Reflection on Virginia Evans's Remarkable Novel
I have just started reading a novel that I suspect will stay with me long after I turn the last page.
It is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, a novel that has become an unexpected bestseller and has been described as a gem about the transformative power of the written word, the solace we find in literature, and the connections we can form with people we may never meet in person.
As someone who has been writing almost every day for many years, I found myself immediately drawn to the book.
Perhaps that is because I see a little bit of myself in its central character, Sybil Van Antwerp.
Sybil is seventy-three, retired, intelligent, opinionated, sometimes difficult, and deeply attached to the written word. Her story unfolds through letters and emails. Through those pieces of correspondence, we gradually discover not simply what happened during her life, but how she has come to understand and sometimes misunderstand, that life.
And that distinction is important. A life is not merely a collection of events.
A life is the meaning we eventually give to those events.
That thought has been on my mind as I continue reading this remarkable novel.
We Are Never Too Old to Learn Something New About Ourselves
One of the most beautiful lessons of The Correspondent is that growing older does not mean that we have finished growing.
We often assume that by the time someone reaches seventy, eighty, or ninety, that person has already figured everything out.
I know better. At 91, I have discovered that life continues to teach us lessons right up until the end.
Age gives us experience, but experience does not automatically give us wisdom. Wisdom comes when we are willing to look backward honestly and ask:
What did I learn from what happened to me?
Sybil's letters become a kind of mirror. As she writes to other people, she begins to see herself more clearly.
That is one of the great gifts of writing. Sometimes we don't know what we really think until we try to put it into words.
I have experienced this myself through my blogs.
Many of my essays begin with a simple thought, a newspaper article, a conversation, a memory from Iloilo, a book I have read, a family story, or something that happened here at The Heritage Downtown.
But somewhere between the first sentence and the last paragraph, something unexpected happens.
I discover what I really think. Writing becomes a conversation with myself.
And then, when I publish it, it becomes a conversation with others.
Lesson One: It Is Never Too Late to Reexamine Your Life
One of the themes that resonates most strongly with me is the idea that we are never too old to reconsider the choices we have made.
Youth has a certain confidence. Sometimes too much confidence.
When we are young, we tend to believe that we understand the world. We make decisions with certainty. We judge other people quickly. We assume that our way of seeing things is the correct way.
That is what I think of as the hubris of youth.
But then life happens. We fall in love. We lose people we love. We make mistakes.
We raise children. We change careers. We move to another country.
We experience success and disappointment.
We discover that people are much more complicated than we once believed.
And eventually, if we are fortunate, we become a little more humble.
Old age has taught me that there are very few things in life that are completely black or white. Most of life is lived in shades of gray.
Lesson Two: Everyone Carries a Story We Cannot See
Another lesson I find particularly meaningful is that we rarely know the entire story of another person.
We see the surface. We see the smile. We see the successful career.
We see the difficult personality. We see the elderly man or woman sitting alone at dinner.
But behind that person may be decades of experiences that we know nothing about.
There may be grief. There may be regret. There may be a broken relationship.
There may be a lost child. There may be a great love.
There may be an act of kindness that nobody else remembers.
This is one reason I have become increasingly reluctant to judge people quickly.
At my age, I have lived long enough to know that every person is carrying a story.
Some stories are simply never told.
Lesson Three: Writing Can Connect Us Across Time and Distance
This may be the lesson of The Correspondent that speaks most directly to me.
Letters are an old technology. Today we have email, texting, Facebook, Instagram, Zoom, and artificial intelligence. We can communicate with someone on the other side of the world almost instantly.
Yet something is lost when communication becomes instantaneous.
A letter requires us to slow down. We have to think. We have to choose our words.
We have to imagine the person who will eventually read them.
That is what makes correspondence intimate.
And perhaps that is why I feel such a connection to Sybil.
I have never met Virginia Evans. She does not know me. Yet through her novel, she has entered my life.
And through my blogs, I have developed relationships with thousands of people whom I have never met.
Some live in the United States. Others live in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, and many other countries.
We may never sit across a table from one another. But through writing, we have conversations.
Perhaps that is one of the miracles of literature: strangers can become companions without ever meeting.
Lesson Four: Literature Can Become a Form of Friendship
I have always believed that books are more than entertainment.
A good book can become a friend. It can comfort us when we are lonely.
It can challenge us when we become too comfortable with our own opinions.
It can introduce us to people, cultures, places, and ideas we might never encounter in our ordinary lives.
And sometimes a book seems to arrive at exactly the right moment.
That is how I feel about The Correspondent.
At this stage of my life, I am increasingly interested in books that ask questions about aging, memory, relationships, forgiveness, and the meaning of a life well lived.
Perhaps that is why this novel resonates with me so strongly.
Lesson Five: We All Make Mistakes
There is another truth that becomes clearer with age:
None of us gets through life without making mistakes.
Some mistakes are small. Others change the direction of our lives.
Some hurt people we love. And some mistakes remain with us for decades.
When we are young, we sometimes think our mistakes define us.
As we grow older, we begin to understand something different.
Our mistakes are part of our story, but they are not the entire story.
What matters is whether we learn from them.
What matters is whether we have the courage to acknowledge them.
And, when possible, whether we can make amends.
That may be one of the greatest privileges of growing older: we have accumulated enough perspective to look at our younger selves with both honesty and compassion.
I can look back at the young man who left the Philippines in 1960 and began a new life in America and recognize both his dreams and his limitations.
I made mistakes. I made decisions I would make differently today.
But I also recognize that the young man was doing the best he could with the knowledge and experience he had at the time. Perhaps we should extend the same grace to others.
Lesson Six: Kindness Has a Longer Life Than Achievement
We spend much of our lives pursuing accomplishments.
Degrees. Careers. Promotions. Awards. Money. Recognition. Prestige.
I understand this very well. I spent many years as a scientist and later as an FDA reviewer and team leader. I am proud of that part of my life.
But as I have grown older, I have begun to measure success differently.
I think more about people. Who did I help? Whom did I encourage?
Who remembers me with affection? Did I make someone's difficult day a little easier?
Did I listen? Did I show kindness when kindness was needed?
Those questions seem increasingly important.
Because accomplishments eventually become historical facts.
Kindness becomes a memory in another person's heart.
And that may be the more enduring legacy.
Lesson Seven: We Can Find Family Beyond Family
One of the things I particularly appreciate about The Correspondent is its understanding that human connection does not always follow biological lines.
During a long life, we collect people. Some are relatives. Some are lifelong friends.
Some are colleagues. Some are neighbors. Some enter our lives briefly but leave a permanent impression.
And some people we may never meet at all. I think of the people who read my blogs.
I may never know many of their names. Yet they have become part of my writing life.
When someone from another country sends me a message saying that one of my stories reminded them of their parents, their childhood, their Filipino heritage, or someone they loved, I realize that something extraordinary has happened.
A personal memory has become a shared memory. A stranger has become a correspondent.
Lesson Eight: Growing Older Does Not Mean Becoming Invisible
Perhaps this is the lesson I would most like my fellow seniors to remember.
We are not finished. We still have stories to tell. We still have wisdom to share.
We can still learn. We can still make new friends. We can still change our minds.
We can still apologize. We can still forgive.
We can still fall in love with a person, a book, an idea, a place, a hobby, or simply another beautiful morning.
Growing older is not merely a process of losing things.
It can also be a process of discovering what really matters.
At 91, I am still writing. Still reading. Still learning. Still playing Bridge and Mahjong.
Still exploring history, culture, food, science, technology, and the extraordinary world around me.
And, thanks to books like The Correspondent, I am still asking questions about what it means to live a meaningful life.
Perhaps Our Lives Are Letters, Too
As I continue reading The Correspondent, I keep thinking about my own writing.
Perhaps every blog post is, in some way, a letter. I write about my childhood in Iloilo.
I write about my parents. I write about my late wife, Macrine, and our sixty-three years together.
I write about my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
I write about being an immigrant who came to America in 1960 and gradually became an American while never forgetting where I came from.
I write about science, the FDA, food, history, Filipino culture, aging, technology, books, and the everyday experiences of living in a senior community.
Sometimes I write simply because something has touched me.
And then I send that thought out into the world. I don't always know who will read it.
But someone does. And that is enough.
Perhaps that is what Virginia Evans is reminding us through Sybil Van Antwerp:
Our words can travel farther than we ever will.
They can reach people we will never meet. They can survive us.
They can make someone laugh. They can make someone cry.
They can remind someone of a forgotten memory.
They can make a lonely person feel a little less alone.
And sometimes, they can help us understand ourselves.
A Final Thought
I am only beginning The Correspondent, so I don't want to pretend that I know yet where Sybil's entire journey will take me.
But perhaps that is appropriate. At this stage of my own life, I have learned that the journey is often more important than knowing the destination.
Virginia Evans has created a character who reminds us that seventy-three is not the end of the story.
Neither is eighty. Neither is ninety. And neither, I hope, is ninety-one.
There are still letters to write. There are still books to read.
There are still people to meet. There are still memories to preserve.
There are still mistakes to understand and perhaps forgive.
There are still acts of kindness waiting to be performed.
And there are still stories waiting to be told.
So, to my fellow readers, young and old, I offer this simple thought:
Never believe that your story is finished simply because you have grown older.
As long as we can think, feel, remember, write, read, listen, and love, we are still becoming who we are.
Perhaps that is the greatest lesson of The Correspondent.
A life well lived is not a life without mistakes. It is a life in which we continue to learn, to connect, to forgive, and to leave a little kindness behind us wherever we go.
And perhaps, in the end, that is what every life becomes:
A letter to the future, written one day at a time.
A place where time slows down, and the worries of the world fade with the sound of rustling leaves and distant waves. Every step feels familiar, like revisiting a dream from childhood—barefoot strolls on sun-warmed paths, the scent of salt in the air, and the laughter of loved ones echoing in the distance.
The scent of fresh earth lingers in the air, the rustling leaves whisper secrets of the past, and the gentle breeze carries the warmth of home. Here, life unfolds at its own pace, reminding you that the simple moments are often the most beautiful.
