A few weeks ago I wrote a letter. I wrote it with a pen, not a computer. I wrote it on notebook paper. It was four pages long.
I was writing a condolence letter to a mom who just lost her young son unexpectedly, and I just couldn’t imagine the thought of simply signing a card or worse yet, typing my thoughts. These words were so important they had to start in my heart and travel through me to my hand. And they did.
I wish my children, and the students at my school, knew more about the art of the handwritten word. In these days of autocorrect, the words you share may or may not be your own. But handwritten words are yours…yours to share and yours to keep, long after a text message has been deleted.
I’m looking right now at a recipe for my grandmother’s apple cake. It’s hanging on a cabinet nearby, written in her handwriting and IS her, my Granny, years before her death in 1995. I remember from childhood the slant of her script…and her loopy g’s and y’s – I know it’s hers. Will our children and grandchildren know our handwriting after we’re gone? How can a typed page be as meaningful in the future as someone’s scribbles on paper?
A few months ago I reconnected with a high school friend. I was able to dig up, and present her with, over forty handwritten letters from her to me during our high school years. Those letters told our stories. From the names of boys we giggled over to little pictures we drew, the memories were documented and saved…and we were able to look back forty years later and shake our heads in disbelief at our younger selves.
My bet is high schoolers today won’t be able to call up the emails and texts they are sending to each other now. I worry that the memories will be lost with the media, whichever electronic – accessible – fast as lightning source of communication is used at the time.
After I finish this post, I’m off to write two thank you notes, handwritten words thanking a few folks for doing some nice things for me. I’ll be writing on my first grade teacher’s cards – she uses the photographs she takes, adds just the perfect written sentiment, and sells them for charity.
100% of the proceeds of her cards go to the Warnecke Learning Center, part of the Good News Partnership organization in Chicago. Email me at cindi.rigsbee@gmail.com to see how you can get some of Mrs. Warnecke’s cards, too, and contribute to the art of writing while helping a good cause!
You know it’s true: words that are written- not typed, not texted – are more meaningful. And words that show up in a real mailbox, instead of an electronic one, mean the most.
Come on…you know you want your own stack of all-occasion cards!