Letter to a Stranger

 Book 20 of my 2022 Reading Challenge

Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us

by Colleen Kinder

5 stars

Published in 2022, Letter to a Stranger is a collection of essays.  Authors were invited to contribute personal stories about an encounter they had with a stranger.  I absolutely love this concept because these were just little snippets of chance encounters with no expectation of longevity.  Plus personal essays by varied contributors is pretty much guaranteed to be a win for me.

Of course I thought of who my letter would be written to.  Mine would be Harold, an older gentleman my husband and I met in London in 2019.  Harold was an older gentleman from New Zealand traveling all around by himself and he was very outgoing.  When we were on a tour together at St. Paul's Cathedral, Kevin offered to take a picture of Harold but instead, Harold handed Kevin his camera and the two of them walked around the cathedral with Harold pointing out things he wanted Kevin to take pictures of.  At the end of the tour, Harold took a pin off his hat and gave it to Kevin to thank him.  We've thought of Harold many times since, especially when the pandemic shut down travel.  I hope he made it through okay and is traveling the world again.