The Lost Art of Letter Writing
by Susan Wittig Albert
 Last
week, while going through some of my mother's papers and photographs,
I came across a bundle of letters. Mother was 91 when she died,
and many of the letters were brown and brittle, some of them
more than 60 years old. I read them with increasing interest
and pleasure but with detachment---after all, I barely knew most
of the writers and their lives seemed distant from mine.
But then I happened on one, printed in a sloping scrawl on a
torn sheet of notebook paper, that made me laugh and cry at the
same time. "Dear Mommy, Knok 3 times. Wate 2 minites
and come in. You won't be sorry!" When I turned it over,
on the back I found my forwarding note to my own mother, dated
May 1969. At the time, I was a single parent, trying to earn
a Ph.D.; my three children and I were living in a shoebox apartment
in the university's graduate student housing. I had scribbled:
"Hi, Mom. I thought you'd enjoy this. I was working at
the library yesterday, and while I was gone, the kids arranged
a surprise. They cleaned house, made their beds!!! And even made
pancakes. I found this note on the door when I came home. Isn't
it sweet?!?!"
Beneath my note, in Mother's firm cursive hand, was a note to
her mother: "Dearest Mama, Susan certainly has her hands
full. Can't you imagine what that kitchen looked like, with those
three rowdies cooking pancakes? I hope she made them wash their
dishes."
And my grandmother's tender response, in shaky script: "Aren't
they just so thoughtful and dear?" The children's note,
my letter, my mother's half-chiding, care-full response, my grandmother's
generous and loving reply-all brought a powerful flood of sweet
memories. All I could do was hold this forgotten treasure against
my heart, wipe away the smiling tears and feel grateful to my
mother for having saved it. It reminded me once again that a
single letter can be a gift of grace that connects us to others
and to the heart's deepest core.
"The talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly
female."--Jane Austent
I love to write to you -it gives my heart a holiday and sets
the bells to ringing.--Emily Dickenson
What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters! You can't
reread a phone call.--Liz Carpenter
Read this emotional and thought
provoking article in this article in Horizons magazine.
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