Reviving the Handwritten Letter

Today is my Mimi’s 76th birthday. I was trying to think of the perfect gift for the perfect person, which in case you haven’t tried, is quite a difficult task. I should tell you a little about her.

She is the most patient, kind-hearted, thoughtful woman you’ll ever meet. Where most people take their frustration out on the people they love the most, she protects her family at all costs, and never, EVER loses her temper with one of us. She sends birthday cards to people she barely knows, and savors the simplest pleasures...like a fresh bag of potato chips or a really soft loaf of bread. 

She’s not a knitting kind of grandmother. She is, however, the kind that will stop whatever she’s doing when you drop by just to sit and listen to how your day is going. When I was little, she let me make coffee pies which consisted of me destroying her snackbar by heaping scoops of coffee grounds together and pretending to roll them into pie crust. And she made me beans and bread with no beans, which meant that she cooked beans, just so I could sop of the juice with my bread.

She used to record Cosby for me every Thursday night, so that I had an entire VHS collection of Cosby reruns to watch when I visited the Farmhouse. 

The Farmhouse sits on a hill just east of Salem, MO. A weathered, wooden sign that reads “Eastwood Estates” now dangles on one hook as you come up the driveway.  I have spent nearly every major holiday in that home, and its walls house my favorite childhood memories. I’ve grown alongside its front yard trees, and have watched a million cars drive Highway 32 outside its picture windows.

Through the years, Mimi has collected matchbooks and Coca-Cola and enough pictures of her grandkids to wallpaper a castle. She doesn’t really throw things away, feels like most things can be repurposed at some point I suppose. We can all be a little bit critical of that particular habit, until she pulls out a newspaper article from 1976 with a picture of my mom in the Salem High School art club, or a random obituary of somebody’s Aunt Judy that she will send on the anniversary just to let that somebody know she cares.

I spent my summer days with Mimi, eating Personal Pan pizzas and banana popsicles poolside as she waited on me hand and foot. To this day, we can’t visit without her offering a hot dog or a bowl of Chili as soon as we walk in the door.

Until her recent fall and the subsequent injuries, she and Pa hosted Sunday afternoon dinner every single week after church. The feasts and the laughter always drew us together, and it’s still the common bond as our families grow and change.

The door isn’t locked at the Farmhouse...at least not during waking hours, and it’s not uncommon to see 7 or 8 cars in the driveway. Once one person stops by, a few more will join, and spontaneous parties happen on a somewhat regular basis.

When I lived away, those were the times I missed most. No matter what was going on, I always knew that Mimi was there...to provide a listening ear, or a quiet nap in the back room, or a gooey grilled cheese sandwich (my ultimate personal comfort food). 

In order to make sure that I didn’t miss out on too much during the years I was gone, she always sent me letters to let me know what was going on ‘back  home’ and to tell me just how much she cared. I suppose when we lived in Indiana I was too young and self-absorbed to appreciate the effort. But through my college years and during my rather tumultuous time in Nashville, I began to save all of her cards and letters.

As her birthday approached this year, I wanted to let her know just how special she is to me, and I pulled out the red wooden box that has held her letters for all these years: over a decade’s worth of wisdom and happenings scribbled onto yellow legal pads or paper bags or her signature “B” stationary. 

My original intention was to pick a couple of letters and send them to her just to let her know that I had saved them for such a long time, but as I began the project, it was truly a Pandora’s box, each letter better than the last at reminding me of what a phenomenal investment she was making with her written word.

In a cyber world of social networking and blogging and e-mail, the handwritten letter is really a lost art. It saddens me to think of the generation that we are losing contact with because they’re not up to speed with our technology. I can post 100 pictures on Facebook with a few clicks of a button, but Mimi has to wait for someone to come by and show her a picture on their cell phone to see what’s going on with me. I used to send cards on a somewhat regular basis, and now I post to a blog that she’ll probably never see on screen. 

Age is a funny thing. I’ve heard it said that at some point, people realize they have more of their life behind them than ahead. I don’t know when that point happens; I’d imagine it’s different for everyone, but it has to be difficult. It has to be difficult to be the same mind in an older body with life changing and growing around you, passing you faster than you can pedal to keep up.

Last month I went an entire week without talking to my Mim, the longest we’ve ever gone, and I recognize a distinct difference growing between us that never did when we took the time to sit and write to each other. We were the best of pen pals, and whether she meant to or not, she was teaching me a profound lesson in interpersonal relationship.

It’s important to let our loved ones know what’s going on with us in the here and now, because enough tomorrows will pass sooner than we like to admit. The gratification isn’t as immediate as a status update and its subsequent comments, but the written word preserves our memories, and allows a legacy to be passed on for generations. 

How selfish of me to be so wrapped up in daily going-ons to not take the time to call or write when people like Mimi, aging gracefully on a hill in Missouri, check their mailbox daily and sit with the phone in their hands waiting for a phone call because they’re genuinely interested in our minutia.

My hope for this particular piece is two-fold. First to remind us of how imperative it is to leave a piece of ourselves for our children and our children’s children. But also, to revive a lost art, and encourage people that are desperate for connection to reach out in a more antiquated method. Write. With a pen. On paper. Consider it an archive. Know that it will hang on someone’s fridge for awhile, or perhaps find it’s way into a wooden red box to be read for years to come. 

Pa, a bit more pragmatic in nature, often gives Mimi a hard time for her birthday card/letter writing habit, calculating the cost of the card, the stamp, and even the gas it takes to go into town to mail. She just smiles and replies that it’s still one of the cheapest ways to make someone happy.

Mimi will be 76 years old by the time I post this, and I’ve posted 76 morsels of goodness from 76 of her letters. If you find yourself even remotely inspired and have just a few minutes to spare, why don’t you scribble down a little thank you, and let a precious woman know that you don’t have to be online to be loved. 

The Farmhouse address is 2294 E. Hwy 32, Salem, MO, 65560

So if you don’t necessarily feel like writing your Mimi, I’ll let you borrow mine. She checks her mail every day, and leaves a ham for the postman every Christmas.