New Year...Old Letters

 

 

 

2013...a new year. We started our morning with coffee, homemade cinnamon rolls, and Jim's scrambled eggs. 

 

After breakfast we sat at the kitchen table and read

cards and letters

 my mother in law had saved over the years.

 

Jim handed me one of the letters and it was from his aunt. Reading her letter was like hearing her talk. I was holding in my hand a letter telling about her day, her family, the weather, her friends she had been with and ending with asking about my mother in law and her family. There were other letters and cards and two touched my heart as they were written by my two daughters, Stacy and Amy. The thing that was very meaningful to Jim was a large brown envelope addressed to his mom from his Uncle Jim, the uncle he is named after. His uncle was in the Army and had sent his mom a linen handkerchief as her Christmas gift in 1943, four years before he was born.

 

I began to think about how we have lost the art of letter writing. Holding a letter written by a loved one, seeing their writing, being blessed again by their encouraging words, or laughing at something funny they wrote is something we miss with text messages, facebook status', and email. These forms of communication are great but I am thankful for cards and letters that I can read over and over... and remember.