Did you know...?
The written word
How many of you have mailed or hand written a card or letter in this past year?
How many of you now just leave it to a Facebook message, a text or a phone call to say thank you, an anniversary or birthday greeting?
I have a life-long friend who does not hesitate to sign her name on a card and mail it. She has done that for as long as I have known her and that has been since grade school. As I look back, I wish I would have saved them all. She not only mails cards to me but I know she mails cards to several people. I wonder what her postage bill is in a month!
This past weekend, I went through my bookkeeping desk at home. I should say I cleaned off the top, more importantly. Now I am a very neat house keeper, (I think, anyway). You can knock on my door almost any day of the week and you will see the kitchen and living areas picked up and clean. My office, at home or work, is another story! Piles is all I can call them, but I do know what is in those piles!
I started on one pile in my home office and ran across the very thing I talked about in the first sentence, handwritten thank you notes. One was written in 2016 when I took an entire meal to a friend’s Mom in Cozad as she moved out of her home. She was moving to an assisted living area; many of the items in her home of 60+ years had been moved, given away or trashed. She came back on that last day. The large dining table was still there along with all the kitchen appliances. I brought the food and the paper products. In 2018, this wonderful lady passed away. But the words she wrote on that card still touched me today. The words are in her handwriting and the simple act of a meal and eating it at her table meant so much to her that day. But the note means so much to me today.
Another note I found was from a young person who I worked on a project on here in Broken Bow. This person has since moved away. Re-reading the note warmed my heart and actually made me remember her!
All of this, because I looked into one of my piles. I will tell you, they are still on top of my desk! I do have a file that I have put many notes like that in over the years, but if I had not had those notes sitting on top my desk, I would not have ran across them again. I will be honest, when I got the mail the day they came, I don’t recall reading them but I must have.
I also hand-wrote a note to my Mom this year on her 90th birthday. When I did so, I wondered why I did not commit words to paper years ago. My Grma always wrote letters to us on our birthdays along with sending a two-dollar bill. Mostly Grma wrote about the weather and what they were doing, but I have gone back and read those letters many times and still have the two-dollar bills in them!
I have also started writing letters to another family member. I am finding the little time it takes has been just as rewarding to me, sitting down and doing it. But receiving letters back is even more precious. I am finding I am learning more about this person than with a quick call or text. I realize that if we want some relationship, feelings or history to be documented, it must be written down. Just like the fact that we print this paper each and every week.
Thank you for reading and I challenge you to find your pen and write a note to someone this week. You have no idea what pile it might be found in the coming years.