Letters

Today, I had an epiphany.  It was ne of those moments when you realize certain things must change or that they already have and you missed it.  Letters.   Remember those?  The absolute joy you had the very moment you opened the mailbox and found a letter addressed to YOU?  I do.  I still have most of them.  I L.O.V.E.D getting letters.  My stepfather traveled a lot.  He would send me post cards from everywhere he went.  My Mamaw and Papaw lived in another state...she would write to me.  In high school I would write to friends who were stationed overseas.  Letters.  Gone is the day when we would send a weekly letter home to momma or grandma.  When my Mamaw passed away 7 years ago, one of the things I received was an envelope of the letters that I wrote to my Mamaw.  Letters from a little bitty girl all the way up to letters about the boyfriend at that moment and wondering if he was indeed "the One".  Recently I was blessed with a email that contained the transcriptions of almost 90 letters that my Great Great Grandfather Allen Livingston wrote to his mother in the late 1800's.  Simple letters really, that had little tidbits of his daily life.  It occurred to me that my children will not have this experience.  They are of the "email" generation.  That generation that can text in a language I can not understand.  The first generation that does not remember "Stationary" or typewriters.  What can you do about that you ask?  Well, write letters.  Today I wrote a letter to a Great Aunt I have not seen in 15 years, a card to my first boss, a card to a sweet lady who used to work for me, and  a letter to my Momma.   I had my girls write a letter to their best friend's in Texas.   Next weekend we will do it again, and again the following weekend.   We will begin writing letters.  Would you like to receive a letter from my children?  Would you be willing to write them back?  The only way to keep the art of letter writing alive is to do it!  I challenge you today...to write a handwritten letter to someone.  Remember that joy of opening the mailbox and seeing a letter?  Give that joy again!

A letter from my Grandpa Mutt in 1987