Find a pen and paper and write a letter

When was the last time you wrote a letter? I'm not talking about an e-mail or anything involving a computer. I'm talking about finding a pen or a pencil and some paper and capturing your thoughts on the page. Fancy stationery is preferred but ordinary notebook paper will do.

I am willing to bet that most people can't remember the last time they wrote a real letter, let alone received one. The excuses are endless. I can't spell. I don't have anything to say. I am not a writer. The telephone or computer is faster. Nobody writes letters any more.

Wrong.

True, most of the mail we receive and send at our house involves bills, magazines and advertising of one sort or another. That is what makes a REAL letter so precious.

I once had dozens of letters from my grandmother. Then I had a cleaning fit and tossed them all. A week or so later she had a stroke and there were no more letters. Now I wish I had saved just a few. The only pages I have in her handwriting are an abbreviated genealogy and the one someone wrote for her when she was in the nursing home. She signed it in her own distinctive penmanship. I never got another letter from her again.

I learned my lesson. I have several letters from my mother that I have saved. She used to write more often but her missives, like mine, have become fewer and fewer over the years.

I used to write five or six letters every week. When my grandmother was alive I would write an identical letter to her and my mother. If I dared to tell one something that I didn't tell the other they would get jealous and I would hear about it as soon as they got together and compared notes.

I occasionally receive a "letter" from my three-year-old granddaughter, Emma. Her last effort was a page colored blue and what I am told was a smiley face on the reverse. If the truth be told, it was the scariest smiley face I have ever seen.

I have saved every letter and card that my daughter has ever sent. They are tucked here and there, and are in no particular order. Now that Emma is beginning to "write" I will save hers, also.

Letters are more than a somewhat archaic means of communication. They are tangible history. When I was researching the family genealogy I contacted a distant relative. In the course of the conversation I asked about a mutual ancestor who had died in the insane asylum.

My information was confirmed when the guy said he had in his possession several letters from said ancestor. I believe the words, "nuttier than a fruitcake," were mentioned. One of these days I would love to read those letters myself. Maybe it would help explain my own ... um ... lunacy.

In addition to whatever words you choose to write, your penmanship tells a lot about you. If you have old letters you will no doubt be impressed by all the flourishes and legibility.

The letters I write contain no flourishes and are all but illegible to anyone not related to me. I once had a friend who said she didn't know whether to laugh or cry when she received my letters. They were sad and funny at the same time. I told her to laugh. The world is too full of tears as it is.

Her own letters held tales of bears in her backyard pond that ate her koi and overseas trips she took for work. I was as proud of her as if she were my own sister. I haven't heard from her in years.

Letters are things that are kept. E-mails are as ethereal as wind. Telephone calls are good for instant communication but words on paper are what we save. The letters we write will be passed down to our grandchildren and they will try to figure out who we were by the words we put on the page.

I challenge you to make someone's day. Write a letter today and drop it in the mail. I'll do the same.[[In-content Ad]]