Dear Lord Julian Fellowes: Thank You.

with Alan Mehanna - 2016-02-18

"You've lived your life, and I've lived mine. Now it's time we live them together."

Matthew, Downton Abbey - Season 2

Dear Lord Julian Fellowes,

I write to you tonight after having watched the series finale of what has become my favorite television series of all time, Downton Abbey. When I read your quote regarding the ‘bittersweet’ ending that the series would have, I was expecting many things. Instead, you gifted us, your audience, the most beautifully written ending to a series. Yes, it may have been idealistic and rather like a fairy tale, but I believe our world rather needed an ending of this nature. 

I also write you tonight, knowing you may never actually read these words, to thank you. Lord Fellowes, you have enriched my love of words, of language, of poetry, and most importantly of story-telling. I own the novelization of the screenplays that are available for purchase and reading them, learning from them, has been quite an experience. 

You see, Lord Fellowes, I am a hopeless romantic. I was raised in a family with values and morals much like the Grantham’s. As I grew older, I witnessed and learned from a father who respected and loved his wife much like a gentleman would love his lady. I, in turn, have grown up into a gentleman, but alas, find myself in a world that has lost its respect for such a man. A man into culture, into arts, into poetry. A man who would do anything to see a smile upon his lady’s face. A man who would love nothing more than to marry and have a family of his own. A man who would teach his children the value of family, of love, of kindness, of forgiveness, and of faith. 

So again, I must thank you for bringing all these to life on our television screens for the past six years. I must thank you for helping remind us of what truly matters in life, of the miracles that we seem to miss every day, of the blessings that we take for granted until we lose them. 

I was the first in my family to begin watching the series, and soon my sister, my mother, and my father joined. Our living room became a time machine and our television the window into that time. For six years, my family shared an hour every week for nine or ten weeks with the Grantham family. We laughed with them, we cried with them, we cared for them, we worried for them, and tonight we bid them a very bittersweet farewell. What you have accomplished Lord Fellowes is no easy feat. A sole writer opening his heart and sharing his story with the world. A story that connected and touched so many people. 

With that in mind, I will continue to learn from you through Downton Abbey (I own the first three series on bluray and will soon own the rest), and your future work. You will indirectly teach me just as Mr. Carson taught Thomas. I want to one day treat words and language like the treasure that they are, craft poetic phrases that are filled with emotion and purity, and tell tales that will connect and touch others. I want to be your student, though you and I will likely never meet, though that would be quite a dream come true. 

Finally, may you continue to tell us stories for many years to come and may you and your family be forever blessed. 

Alan Mehanna

Instructor, Faculty of Information & Communication