A Search for Connection
The power of letters—to befriend, love and support others—is why Atlanta-based Hannah Brencher, 26, started MoreLoveLetters.com, an online movement to inspire more letter-writing.
“My generation thinks they don’t have time for it,” Brencher says. “But when they actually sit down and write a letter, they realize how meaningful it is.”
Brencher started the website when she moved to Manhattan after college and found herself lost and alone. One day, while riding the subway feeling blue, she saw an older woman who looked like she felt the same way.
“I decided to write her a letter right there—and left it on the subway car with the inscription, ‘If you find this letter, it’s for you,’” she says.
The simple act of writing that letter made her feel better—she
started leaving notes everywhere, in bathroom stalls, tucked into coat pockets, on park benches and at bars. This led to a blog post offering letters to anyone interested.The next morning, she had 400 requests. Her website, launched in 2012, is the result, as is her new memoir, If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers (Howard, 2015).
30 Rejection letters Stephen King received for his first novel, Carrie ( legend has it that King nailed the letters to a timber under his bed)
1 million+ Letters American kids sent to Santa Claus last year
65,000 Letters delivered to the White House each week, as well as 100,000 emails and 1,000 faxes
20% The drop in letters mailed since 2007, according to the U.S. Post Office
Preserving Family History
Jane Randel’s children have no idea their mom has been writing and saving letters to give them one day. This tradition was inspired by the loss of a dear friend, a father and neighbor, who died on 9/11 at the World Trade Center. At the time, Randel, now 47, was a new mother and felt compelled to write her then 1-year old son a letter.
“I poured all my mushy thoughts
on the page,” she says. “9/11 made us all consider our mortality—I certainly realized that nothing mattered more than my family.
“I’m not sure when I will present them—but I hope that when I do, they will be meaningful.”
Diana Welch, now 38, has only the haziest memories of her own parents, both of whom she lost by the time she was 8 years old.The youngest of four, Welch’s oldest sister Amanda raised her—and presented her with a priceless high school graduation gift.
“It was a book of letters and photos from all the people who knew my parents well,” Welch says. “I still have it today—though it’s dog-eared and faded. Opening that book, even now, immediately reunites me with two people who left so long ago.”
That’s no surprise, says Hannah Brencher, whose blog sends bundles of love letters to those in need: “We are in desperate need for tactile proof that we matter— letters give us that.”