To the letter
I did something the other day that I haven’t done often lately: I wrote a letter. Not an email letter, an actual pen-on-paper letter. In fact, I wrote four of them. One right after the other. They weren’t epic--long narratives of my daily life or creative streams of consciousness; to be honest, they might be considered more notes than letters.
I was writing thank you notes for the gifts and condolences after my dad’s death; for the beautiful flowers, meals and other remembrances sent by friends and family to us, the bereaved. In addition to the box of preprinted notes from the funeral director, I made up some note cards with a picture of my dad and wrote a little note inside. But there were other friends--long time friends of Dad’s who might not have learned of his passing--who I wrote to on 8.5 by 11 cream résumé stationery so I could include the laminated obituary from the funeral home.
Each letter was somewhat difficult to write, not only because of the emotion brought up from remembering different aspects of Dad’s life, but because I simply don’t handwrite that much anymore. The difficulty in the physical writing made the emotional part challenging, too. With every pen stroke, I wondered if I could get to the next word, and if I did, spell it correctly. Not only was my handwriting clunky--I had to think through the spelling of thoughtfulness and generosity because I left some letters out--but I misspelled some words, too. I misspelled receive without my trusty spell check.
The other thing I noticed was that I felt a fleeting anxiousness when I realized I wouldn’t get a response, immediate or otherwise. There would be no notification that the recipient had read my letter and, unless I had the wrong address or put the incorrect postage on the envelope and it was sent back, I’d never know if they even got it.
Nor would I be able to go back and review what I had written in my Sent Mail--compulsively going over and over the words I had already sent on their way, wondering if they were received in the manner I had intended. Whatever I thought was a good idea to write was written--there was no taking it back.
Like the note I wrote to Susan S. in 6th grade urging her to reconsider going steady with Greg T. I wrote a long, long letter detailing Greg’s handsome face and popularity status. I may have even gotten a little aggressive, letting her know that if she in fact refused his request, I might not be her friend anymore. (Perhaps I had a little thing for Greg myself--if she refused I could justify ditching her to pursue him.) Anyway, Miss Smith intercepted the note on its way to Susan and announced that she would read it to the class the next day. As you might imagine, I happened to be sick the next day and had to stay home. My mom reminded me of what her mother, my Nana, always said, “Don’t write down anything that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the New York Times” and then wrote her own note: something to the effect of “whatever form of punishment you have in mind for Cindy is no match for what she’s put herself through today.” It worked. I slunk back to school the following day and the letter was not mentioned again. I think Susan and Greg ended up going go steady without my help.
Last year, early on in the pandemic, when we weren’t able to see anyone, I started to write letters to Luca, my grandson. I think I only got a couple done before the habit fell away, but it was fun to do and revived in me an old connection--becoming comfortable with my handwriting. This is one of those “Do as I say, not as I do” things because even though I encourage such connection in all my writing classes, I rarely take pen to paper anymore unless I’m writing out my To-Do list. Even though I abandoned the practice early on, I recall enjoying finding the right paper, adding some stickers or drawings, choosing the most appropriate stamp and clipping it to my door for the postman to pick up. It may be why I chose to write letters to Dad’s friends; the activity wasn’t as foreign to me as it once was.
I’ve always been a mailman-watcher; I always think I’m going to get something wonderful in the mail--even after all these years of junk mail, political promotions and bills. And every once in awhile I do; my friend Trudy sends me a inspirational or amusing postcard now and then. My cousin Diane still writes letters with family history, pictures and recipes. And last week, a letter to my dad with the return address of simply “President Barack Obama” arrived in the mail. I posted it on Facebook saying Dad would have loved to have gotten this letter. Obviously it was a donation request from the Democratic National Committee, but I pretended it was a handwritten note commending Dad for his years of service to his community and country. If I never open it, who’s to say it wasn’t?
Of course, now, I’d love to be on the front page of the New York Times. And I will have been able to carefully choose every single syllable I write beforehand and delete it, revise it, recall it, withdraw it. If--or when--that happens, I’ll write and let you know.