At the age of nine, Victoria Carol Austin would write letters to “nannu Lewis”, who then always took the time to post his handwritten replies to be delivered from his home in Fgura to hers in Santa Luċija.

Now that her grandfather has passed away, Victoria, 13, has written a final letter to her beloved grandfather expressing how hard it was living through the pandemic – especially the solitude and the challenges brought about by online schooling.

“I’m going to be honest – this life scared me a bit,” Victoria wrote to her grandfather Lewis Borg Marks, in a candid and sad letter penned on what would have been his 83rd birthday.

Victoria’s letter won a MaltaPost letter-writing competition and will now go on to compete with letters written by children from around the world in a competition organised by the Universal Postal Union.

When faced with the theme – a letter to a family member about the pandemic experience – Victoria  knew she would pour out her pent-up emotions if she addressed her words to her grandfather – something she did in the past when she spent several months writing to him as a hobby.

Victoria and her brother Cooper, 12, were always close to their maternal grandfather. Before the pandemic they would visit him regularly but, since March 2020, they could only see him and their grandmother from a safe distance.

“We could not hug him,” says Victoria, explaining that he was vulnerable because he suffered from various health conditions. Last January, Lewis suffered a heart attack and died in hospital three days later. On May 11 – his birthday – Victoria wrote the letter:

“What’s it like up there? Let me start by saying that I really miss you and no day passes without me thinking about you.”

What’s it like up there? Let me start by saying that I really miss you and no day passes without me thinking about you

As she poured out her emotions, the teen wrote about how hard it was to remain positive in the face of the pandemic and the changes it brought about.

“I always keep my curtains and windows closed, not because of the huge heatwave but because there’s nothing to see,” she wrote.

Victoria talks about clinging on to hope that things would return to normal and about the deep disappointment she experienced when she had to spend months online schooling, sitting at a computer for seven hours a day.

All this led to so many missed opportunities, including the chance to join an under-15 girls football team. 

“I wasn’t happy: I’d often think about my friends and you and when will life go back to normal. I’d remind myself that this was the new normal and to stop acting like a little girl and adapt to it. I’d bury by head into my pillow and sob quietly,” she wrote.

His death was the final blow since it came at a time when all hope seemed lost. But then she received a packaged: a set of Harry Potter books, and with the support of her parents – Carol and Richard – and the positivity of her brother she managed to find hope again.

She rediscovered her passion for writing, something she had been doing since a very young age. Since the age of six, Victoria wrote poems and short stories which she illustrated.

She ends her letter by telling her grandfather that she will hold on and have faith that things will return to normal.

And, in the words that her grandfather once wrote to her in a letter: “As I always tell you and Cooper, be happy and keep smiling.”