This week, I started going through some boxes of old letters and cards dating back some 20, 30, even 40 years! I am a saver of documents. I have always been a writer starting back in my childhood days when I had pen pals in other states. I looked forward to getting mail and as soon as I got a letter, I would write a response.
This continued through my teens and 20’s as I would send cards to family members who had birthdays. I also wrote letters to great aunts, cousins, and many, many friends who I met through different summer camps and schools I attended as well as people who I met throughout my life: friends of friends, old friends from my hometown, people who I met on my road trip across the U.S.A., and some of the people who were mentors to me in life.
Most of these people’s letters and cards still exist in the boxes I presently have. And I have to tell you how that occurred. When I was in my 20’s and moving around from one city to another during my radio broadcasting days, I saved and stored these letters at my dad’s furniture factory. Dad had a warehouse in Worcester, MA where a lot of my personal belongings were stored and they remained there until my “big move” across the country to California in 1988.
When I made that move, I shipped these boxes to Los Angeles and continued to store them in the different apartments that I rented. Sometimes these things were in a garage and sometimes they were in a closet.
In 1995, I finally bought a home of my own at age 35 and all of those boxes came with me. Surprisingly, they are all intact without any damage from dust, rodents, or the passing of time.
To these boxes I added additional cards and letters (and photographs) so there were probably five large boxes of paper that I stared at for the past year thinking: I have got to go through these things someday and get rid of some of this paper!
Well, that day finally came a week ago when I grabbed a fistful of papers that I began to read, and what a lovely surprise it was: notes and letters from my late Dad telling me that he was sending me a check because he knew that, as a young person, I might need some money (how sweet!). My Dad always looked out for me and even when I didn’t want his help, he was there to give me advice or loan me (more like ‘give me’) some money.
I had many, many, many cards from my Mom who never missed Valentines Day, Chanukah/Christmas or my birthday to write me a card. She also wrote me long letters telling me how things were in her life and encouraging me in my life and my career. I so cherish these letters in my Mom’s handwriting as she presently has dementia and no longer can write.
I have many postcards from my late sister, Nancy, who passed away 25 years ago. Seeing her unique handwriting and reading what she wrote makes me feel like she is still with me!
There were love letters from old boyfriends which reminded me of how loved I have always been. And cards from many longtime friends who continued to stay in touch with me, even when we didn’t see one another for decades.
I am so glad I have saved all of these cards because written cards and letters in people’s own handwriting is so much more meaningful than pre-printed signatures. And emails and texts don’t leave any permanent message unless you take the time to print them out.
Back in the pre-internet, pre-cell phone days, writing was the only alternative in communication to expensive long-distance calls. So, most people wrote letters or notes to the ones they loved.
Nowadays, most people just send a text with a short phrase and sometimes, it’s not even generated by them – it’s written by AI so it’s not even something they created!
Emails are not much of an improvement as they, too, can be lackluster and again, written by AI.
As I sift through these boxes of old letters, some written to me as a child at overnight camp, I am so grateful that I saved them! These are a true record of my life. They reflect the friendships/relationships that I have had in my life and express in the senders’ original handwriting how they felt and what they wanted to say to me at that time.
I am slowly going through hundreds of letters and cards and it’s something I look forward to doing every evening before I go to sleep. Because in doing so, I am recreating these experiences in my life as I re-read the letters from the people I have loved who are no longer here to share their thoughts with me. But by virtue of their letters, I still can hold them close to me and feel their feelings expressed on the paper.
So, my message to you is: enjoy the letters and cards that you receive and if you are so fortunate as to have saved any of these documents, keep them as long as you can. They are a part of your heritage and will continue to provide value and enjoyment as you read them, over and over.
And if some day you should pass these things on to your children, they will know more about who you were and the friendships you shared through your time here.