It's In The Cards

 Continuing week one of the April A to Z Blog Challenge...

Day 3-C is for Cards and Letters 

Do you write letters? Did you write letters once upon a time? I confess to still loving pretty stationery, a good pen that writes just so, and seeing an envelope in my mailbox that is clearly personal. If you send me a card I will open it, read it, admire the design, and display it for at least a few days on the mantle or kitchen island. 

I have a hard time throwing a card in the trash, but of course I can't keep them all. I do have a collection of some whose words are extra sweet stashed in my closet. I looked through them recently, but could part with none. 

When each of my girls were born I put the cards I was sent in a scrapbook, which sounds a little over the top, except when I flip through that now I'm glad I saved them. I see the words written inside, and remember the prayers of so many family friends who knew me as a child, who watched me grow to become a mother myself, and the memory of these godly women is a treasure. 

In a convenient but unplanned turn of events, hubs and I finally tackled the great attic clean out of 2024 2025 2026 this week, and came upon some cards and letters I'd written him when we were dating. There was my young angsty heart laid bare in ink on slightly yellowed stationery. 

A stamp in 1980 was just 15¢, and that's the sort of time capsule you won't get from a deleted email. 

We started dating towards the end of a spring semester, then spent that summer apart so we wrote letters. How fun to read what my 20-year old self was thinking and feeling in the earliest days of our getting to know one another. 

Four pages front AND back...

I was not dramatic at all. Ha!  

I think about the world today and how communication is instantaneous and mostly brief. Texts, emails, messages sent via the miracle of technology and all that jazz. On one level this is wonderful, but I can't help but think we've lost something too. 

Something precious and worth keeping. 

There's a thoughtfulness to the act of letter writing that is mostly missing from an email. How often do you save and re-read an email time and time again, years apart even? An email goes into your digital trash can. A card or letter from someone who loves you, who appreciates you and tells. you why, who encourages you and lets you know you're thought of, well that is at the very least a day brightener and most often it's something more. 

A keepsake to hold on to in a disposable world.