Letters

Letters. Remember them? My natal family received a neatly written two page letter every week from my paternal step-grandmother. She was a first-grade teacher and a farm wife. Her carefully crafted cursive surpassed any font past or present. Her letters were newsy, caring, and welcomed. My biological paternal grandmother wrote each week—crowding 900 words on a single postcard. Every Wednesday I typically raced to the mailbox to get those “letters.” My maternal grandmother lived across the road, thus I enjoyed daily visits instead of letters. Every Sunday night, my father wrote a letter to each of his parents as long as they lived.

Time, technology, and temperment change things; as well as the practice of sending letters—to the point that few people send/get personal letters any more. But as my mother-in-law said about roses, “They say so much!” Unlike letters, how many Emails do you intentionally save to read again and again, or tuck into your purse or pocket to keep handy? My guess? None.

Writing a letter takes time, thought, and, well, toughness. Posting a meaningful personal letter is not for the fainthearted. Yet, it is a virtual Vitamin B-12 to the person who receives it. As is true of Vitamin B-12, if you don’t get a letter, you won’t get sick—or die for missing one; you do experience a latent loss. A caring, friendly letter is a dose of your presence to the recipient. It shows a depth of caring that’s missing in an Email or Text message.

Paige kept the letters I wrote to her before we married. I found them recently while unpacking yet another box—yes, it has been a while since I moved here. Back then, I knew she kept them; I know this because she needed me to read my handwriting when I came to see her; that way she would know what I had written! (But alas, once in a while, not even I could read my handwriting.)We laughed a lot about that; I am not thin-skinned about my awful handwriting. (At least no one can forge my signature!) I didn’t know till now that she still had those letters! Sometimes my handwriting chafed her to the point she would say, “I wish I had been your First Grade teacher!!!” But I digress.

Down through the centuries, letters have been kept for posterity. Much of Christian theology originates from letters, foundational for Christian believers; the Apostles to the early Christian Fathers and Mothers wrote letters, even in difficult circumstances. Paul, writing to Philemon, pleaded for him and the church that met in the home of Archippus, to accept his friend, Onesimus, as a gift of love to these friends. To churches in Rome, Thessaloniki, Corinth, and others, Paul wrote letters of encouragement, direction, and sometimes simple scolds for their errors.

The seventeenth century brother, from the order of Discalced Carmelites in Paris, Brother Lawrence, wrote letters—often called “conversations”; Abbé Joseph de Beaufort, compiled these into a book, The Practice of the Presence of God. Brother Lawrence’s letters continue still, inspiring and guiding the journeys of untold numbers of people down through the centuries.

There is something visceral—in a positive way—about holding a hand-written letter in your hand. It has something—almost the feeling that you’re having an in person visit. And. By the same token, you may never know what a positive impact derives from a letter you write.

Go ahead. Write that letter you’ve been saying was too much trouble to post—or wouldn’t matter. If there’s a chance the person may need you to translate your handwriting—then type it and send both—leading with a typed amusing disclaimer, but send it! your reader will know you took the time to care. You will “make the day” for someone!