The Lost Art Of Letter Writing

I no longer write letters to my family, the old fashioned kind with an envelope and a stamp, and it has nothing to do with email and computers or even cell phones.

My Paternal Grandmother, Mamaw Eunice, and I had a really good relationship. We just naturally gravitated to one another for some reason. Looking back I wonder why; we had really different personality types. Although I can talk a friend's ear off at times, I have always been a loner type in my innermost self and am never lonely when I'm physically alone. Mamaw Eunice ALWAYS wanted someone around to talk to. (The picture up there is, from the left, Mamaw Eunice, Big Brother, Big Sis, Me, and Papaw. Mom had bad aim with the camera sometimes. Big Sis and I are obviously obediently saying "cheese" for Mama.)

Mamaw Eunice was a natural born talker. She had a bajillion stories to tell, and could, at bedtime, make up a wonderful bedtime story to tell us kids. Just make it up on the spot, and it would be interesting, too.

But of all the kids, I was the one most interested in spiritual things, and Mamaw Eunice was a strong Christian. So as a kid, I would sit still long enough to read the Bible with her and talk about Jesus. My siblings and cousins, not so much.

Anyway, Mamaw Eunice was a special person in my life, and I had told her many times that I loved her, but after Papaw (my grandfather and her husband) died in the early 80's, Mamaw lived alone, and I got married and moved away soon after that, so we mainly visited by phone. We would have long conversations about everything; we were relatives, but friends too.

I also would write, because in the days before free long distance via cell phone, a long distance call was a pretty big cha-ching on the phone bill every month. So we would write back and forth as well.

And I went through a period where I had so many things on my heart to tell her, and I knew she wouldn't live forever, but my old inability to speak the deep things of my heart aloud kept getting in the way.

As a consequence of my introverted-ness, I have always been much better at putting exactly what I think and feel on paper as opposed to speaking face to face or by phone. (Half the stuff on this blog, I've never voiced to any person, in person.)

I really felt I needed to tell her these things, so I wrote her a very long letter in which I told her all of my thoughts about her, family, life in general, etc., but especially about how I valued our relationship. I mentioned that I knew she wouldn't live forever and that I felt burdened to tell her these things.

She called me when she received the letter and said that she had understood perfectly every word, that it was as if she could see inside my head. We talked a while and shared a good cry.

That was the last time I talked with her. She died soon after this.

We were living in Dallas at the time, and made the trip back to Louisiana for the funeral.

Then a number of years after this, my family and I were living back in Lousiana when I transferred from a college in Georgia to Louisiana Tech to finish my engineering degree.

And, without realizing what was goin on, I started really wanting to talk to my Father and tell him how much I appreciated he and Mama, and all the things they did for us as we were growing up. Etc., etc.

Of course, being me, I couldn't ever get myself to speak it all out when he and I were alone.

But the pressure built within me until I finally sat down and poured my heart out about everything I had been thinking in a long letter to my Dad. I gave it to him with a Father's Day card in 1994.

He died a few months later, several days after my birthday. The last time I spoke with him, he and Mama had brought me a cake and visited for a while on my birthday. I hugged them both and told each of them that I loved them. Almost the last words my father spoke to me in person was "I love you too, Son."

After this, everybody in the family started talking about the letters that I had written to Mamaw Eunice and Daddy before they died. In my defense, like I said, Dad actually died a few months after the letter.

Anyway, since all of this, my relatives live in fear of receiving a fat envelope from me containing a long letter in which I tell them how I love them and what they mean to me.

I'm not joking about this. This is not a funny story. If I have something to say to someone, I DO NOT PUT IT IN A LETTER SENT VIA THE GOOD OL' U.S. POSTAL SERVICE.

I truly believe that if I sent someone a letter, they wouldn't open it. So I have to set my personality traits aside and phone them. I've gotten a little better at telling people I love them and when I see them, hug them and such, despite my not being a naturally demonstrative person.

I email back and forth with Big Sis and Younger Brother, usually at their work emails, and we talk on the phone.

But if I have a burden to tell someone the things I told to Mamaw Eunice and Dad in the letters I wrote them, I have to swallow my natural tendencies, and just speak plainly over the phone, a bit here and a bit there.

Because to this day, I think a puffy envelope from me would be received as if it was being delivered by the Grim Reaper himself.

Although I think more clearly on paper, nobody wants a hand-written letter from me. Even if it were just a plain old how-ya-doin' letter, with no signs or portents detailed therein.

Bummer. I always love writing and receiving 'real' letters. There's a magic and excitement to recieving an old fashioned letter in the mail, that neither emails nor phone calls can match.

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On A Personal Note: I've had other 'burdens' about members of the family, that I don't care to go into here. But I'll tell you this, I have learned to pray when I get this way, because, well, over time I've become personally as convinced of the value of prayer as surely as any of the science my job as an engineer is based on. As the Bible says, "To whom much is given, much is required." It just took me a while to realize that these feelings or premonitions are not for my edification, but God's way of saying, "Hey, I want YOU to pray for this person." End Of On A Personal Note