Handwritten Notes & Letters

Do you still write letters by hand? Once, letter writing was not just communication but also an art. I admit to seldom writing a letter by hand these last few years, but I'm going to do better in the New Year.

Why? Because when I was working with my Mom on her memoir Memory Lane: My Sentimental Journey, I treasured the handwritten correspondence, notes, and cards she'd collected over the years.

Love Letters Are Handwritten

In her book, we published the poem my grandmother had written to my grandfather on a Leap Year prior to their marriage. To see the words she'd written in her own handwriting affected me profoundly. That love letter, treasured over the decades, made me realize how lacking our modern world is in the art of letter writing.

I can't visualize a future in which a woman unties a ribbon from a packet of ink jet printed emails to disclose the love letters from her husband. It just doesn't seem as personal.

I have notes my husband has written me on scraps of paper over the years though we were never separated long enough to need letters. I treasure those bits of paper. He sends me emails when he travels, but, somehow, they're not the same.

Test of Time

Handwritten notes and letters stand the test of time. Maybe they're treasured because they represent a gift of time. It takes but a moment to dash off an email. When writing a letter by hand, one must gather paper, envelope, postage, pen, and one's thoughts. When a letter writer sits down to write, to transfer thoughts to paper, more consideration and introspection is called forth.

Indeed, it strikes me that a handwritten letter is a gift of time. It's even more of a luxury in today's busy world.

In the Bible, Jeremiah 31:33 says: I have written you in my heart.

Takeaway Truth

If you love someone, make an effort to hand write a letter to them more frequently this next year.