Backstory
Handwritten notes? In the day of briefest possible communication like tweets, texting and Instagram? Here’s the story of how that came about.
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Pen Pal – #331
“Do you think Grandma would like to be my pen pal, ” my 10-year old grandchild asked her mom. We live several hundred miles away from each other and I don’t have a chance to engage in grandmotherly things like attending her ballet classes or watching her play softball. And now, she had come up with the idea of writing to each other.
Well, we’re both on Facebook, we both have computers, we both email each other, but here she was wanting to do something more personal and to me something very precious. I agreed in a moment and we began a stream of communications that kept the postman hopping.
I bought her return labels for her envelopes with her name and address on them and the greeting, Hi Grandma! She sent me messages of one or two sentences or whole pages worth of observations and questions and endearments full of sweet 10-year old innocence.
Yes, some wound up on the refrigerator where I secretly hoped that visitors would read her charming text. Others were packed lovingly in a box to be returned to her in 10 or 20 years to reacquaint her with the young girl she once was. Perhaps by then to have a daughter of her own with whom to share.
I am so pleased to be the pen pal of this special little person.
P.S.
Well, she IS now 10 years older. No daughter to share this with yet, so I’m keeping the ribbon tied box for when that event comes along. Once scrolled to paper, her words are mine forever.
[Show #331]