To this day, there’s something special about a
handwritten letter, whether it’s writing or receiving one. Every moment, from when you hear the mail
truck down the street, which signals the delivery of the letter that you’ve
anxiously awaited, to hurriedly opening the letter—ripping the envelope open—
and finally seeing what information and thoughts the letter brought. Then there’s the handwriting— whether it’s
the dazzling cursive or shakily printed letters that show the progress of
learning to write and spell—there’s a lot more than just the written words in
the letter. Accompanying the letter you can find a child’s crayon-drawn
pictures of a person standing next to a house on a sunny day, with a flower
just as big, or you can find the carefully chosen photographs that fall out
from between the letter’s pages.
I come from a letter-writing family; before the
dawn of the computer age and e-mail, it was an alternative way to share moments
with friends and loved ones. The letters
were a way for my sister and I to write about our week spent toasting
marshmallows and playing in the lake at camp.
It was a way to try and keep touch with friends when we moved to another
state; to try and remind ourselves no matter where we moved to, we would honor
an eternal friendship made through the secret pact of crossing our hearts.
Letters were how my mom, sister, and I wrote about
our day when my dad was out on naval deployments and couldn’t be with us. We
learned through his letters that he missed us just as much, if not more than we
missed him. Even now, in 2013, letters sometimes trump the computers and 21st
century technology in times when my family could only communicate by writing to
my sister, Ashliegh, during her Air Force boot-camp.
They are artifacts and
memories of intimate conversations between two people—there are events,
feelings, secret desires, and even uncertainty of unknowns.
Happy reading,
Krystina
