• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

CONSIDER THIS with Annette Petrick

Timely perspectives on life, love, friends, family, giving back, and giving thanks

  • Home
  • About
  • Topics
  • Story Library
  • Reviews
  • Connect

pen pal

Pen Pal

Play

Backstory  

Handwritten notes?  In the day of briefest possible communication like tweets, texting and Instagram?  Here’s the story of how that came about.

Click to listen or follow below to read.

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]

Filed Under: Advice and Encouragement, Family and Friendship, Love and Kindness, Memories and Aging Well Tagged With: handwritten notes, pen pal

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to the Podcast & Blog Post


(Your information is safe with me. I use MailChimp to send weekly emails that link to my most recent podcast episode and blog post. I never sell or share your information. You may unsubscribe at any time.)

Now Featured in Grand Magazine

A new adventure for Consider This Radio Show! We're now featured in Grand Magazine, and YOU can subscribe for free! Click here to subscribe. It's my gift to you!

Grand mag subscribe Feb 2019

NOTE: Grand Magazine subscription does not automatically subscribe you to my Sunday morning email. See below to be included in Sunday Morning Friends. 

Connect with me!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • Autumn
  • Best Mother’s Day Gift
  • Heartfelt Letter from Annette
  •      Final Sunday Consider This Story
  • The Christmas Pageant

Find Shows by Category

Active Member
Virginia Bloggers

Virginia Bloggers logo

Tale Tellers of St Augustine

Virginia Storytelling Alliance logo

Cowbird logoRead and hear Annette’s stories on Cowbird.com, a public library of human experience: stories from writers in 185 countries.

Active Member

Shenandoah County Chamber-Logo

rotary international logo

2X Paul Harris Fellow
J. Carl Coiner Award for
outstanding service
2018-2019

Recent Posts

  • Autumn
  • Best Mother’s Day Gift
  • Heartfelt Letter from Annette
  •      Final Sunday Consider This Story
  • The Christmas Pageant

Categories

  • Home
  • About
  • Topics
  • Story Library
  • Reviews
  • Connect

© 2024 Annette Petrick - Consider This Radio Show. All Rights Reserved.