I don’t remember how old I was when I came up with the (brilliant!) idea to ask my Grandmother if she would be my pen pal. Or maybe it was my Mom’s (brilliant!) idea. Anyway, it was brilliant.
How much fun I had writing cards and letters to my Grammie – and the excitement that built up waiting for her cards to arrive in the mail. She would always update me on the weather first (I think it’s a New England thing) and then the general going-ons in her life, including her dogs, and gardening. She would often include stickers, and things that she had cut out of magazines to include in my card.
I treasured these.
In fact, I still have them all. And I recall vividly the last card that my Grammie sent me before she died. I am so glad to have these tangible remants of her writing, her thoughts, her expressions of her love and caring for me. They still make me feel special to this day, when I read through them all.
Part of my happiness project is sending cards out to people twice weekly. I hope that they bring the same sense of special-ness to the recipients that I felt on those days that a card arrived in the mail just for me. There is something to be said for taking the time to write a Real! Live! Letter! to someone and sending it through the Real! Live! Post! Office!
Go ahead, just try it!
My Gram and I exchange letters, too! Not as often as I used to before I had Caroline (time slips away oh-so-easily now) but we still write back and forth. I love getting her letters, even if it's the same story almost every time: gardening projects, weather reports, visits to my parents, etc. But I still treasure them. I'm glad you had these moments with your Grammie; maybe one day we'll be the ones sending our young relatives weather updates! 🙂