So, I've got this friend who I've known since we were "snot nosed little brats" as her father would call us. She and I have fought more times than I can count, and have always reconciled. 15 years of this folks, 15 years.
Anyways, she sent me a letter the other day. A bonafide letter. Hand written, on loosleaf, addressed by hand, stamped and sealed... mailed away. Who gets mail like that anymore? Why have we stopped?! Sheerly for convenience sake, because e-mail is THAT much faster? Well, that's lame. People should bring back the hand-written correspondance. It's much more personal.
Who doesn't like receiving a letter in the mail, addressed personally to them, that isn't a bill, or a solicitation... or junk? What if, instead of a message on your facebook wall saying "Happy Birthday" you got a call, or someone took the time to plan ahead and mail you a card?
Now, I'm not trying to sound like I'm all high and mighty, and I already do this stuff - cause in reality, I'm just as bad as, if not worse than a lot of people out there. I am simply posing questions.
Could society go back to the "old ways" from before e-mail, before texting, WAY before facebook? Remember what cursive writing is folks? It's not where you shove the f-bomb in every six or so words, it's certainly not writing out "bad magic" spells. It's where you wrote, in pen or pencil (remember those big fat red ones?) and all your little letters were smooshed together, and conjoined. I know I remember writing in my little scribbler in grade three, practicing my letters, two finger-widths apart. Line upon line of lowercase 'e's followed by rows upon rows of uppercase 'e's. And then we started with the words, "cat", "dog", "elephant". Oh, those tricky little letters - "zebra", "yellow", "queen".
*side note* has anyone ever wondered why on earth the uppercase Q, when written in cursive, looks like a 2?
Anyways, back to the story about my friend who wrote me a letter. I found it on my bed, where someone had placed it when they brought in the mail, and I got so excited. Mail. For me. Personally addressed, hand written... it's gotta be good! The only way it could be a bill is if MTS or VISA started hand addressing all their envelopes - sneaky little ...
Personal mail. Sweet! I opened it up, and upon reading it, learned a lot about my friend, and apparently, something about myself. She wrote about what my friendship meant to her, why it's so special, and how she felt that it's so very rare to find someone who you can tolerate for this long. And then, the dams broke. She had included a letter that she wrote to my dad. She wrote it the day she found out that he passed away. She thanked him for raising me and my sisters so well, and for taking care of her when she was over at our place. She thanked him. For anything and everything that he did for her. For being him.
When was the last time anyone - I'm including myself in this - sat down and really thought about who they're thankful for, and then told that person? I know it's been an awful long time since I've done that.
I know it's no where close to Thanksgiving, but maybe that's a good thing. We shouldn't have to wait for a certain day to tell people we're thankful for them. Do people wait for a certain day to do grocery shopping, even though the cupboards are long since bare? No, if it needs to be done, people go and do it.
Someone out there needs to be thanked, for all they do, and maybe they just don't know it yet. I'm challenging myself (and whoever wants to join in) to actually think about that. Who in your life needs to be thanked for something? Write it out, or just call them up, or take them out for coffee and say it. I think, as a whole, we all need to be a bit more thankful for people who affect our lives, and make it known to them that you're grateful for what they've done and/or still do.
