Sending a card is a sign of love

THE wood-burner was lit, lovely music was playing and I was writing Christmas cards. For some years now we’ve designed our own and I hope people realise that the effort means something special.

The tradition of sending cards — writing, ‘Thinking of you’ and similar messages — means a lot to me and I hope it always will.

Our lovely postie Jane tells me people seem to be sending more cards this year, because of being kept apart from friends and family by the virus.

Good! I really don’t like e-cards or virtuous messages from well-off folk telling me they’re not sending cards but giving money to charity. Why not do both?

But each year when I get out my two address books (one old) I have to fight flutters of melancholy.

Robin felt them, too, as he wrote cards for his family. He also realised he really didn’t feel much like writing ones to a couple of people he was once good friends with.

Every year you wonder how and why you lost touch with that person who used to be a pal. There was no quarrel; nothing dramatic. Just a drifting apart as you move on through life. Quite normal, but still a bit sad.

Just as you can’t keep all the clothes you have owned and enjoyed wearing, so you can’t cling on to people from the past who may have only been friends because you worked together.

New f riends have taken their places — so let’s write cards to them.

The deepest sadness comes when you come across the addresses with a line through them — not because somebody has moved, but because they no longer inhabit this world of ours at all.

The name and address of my beloved late mother-in-law brings a tear. It simply can’t be helped.

When I see her name I imagine I could pick up the phone and she would be there, saying, ‘Hello, darling!’ in that wonderful deep, warm voice.

But you know, just in that moment . . . why, she is.

Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.