To the Letter

Letter writing has long been an important part of my life. In the days before email, Twitter, Facebook, instant and text messaging, writing letters kept me connected to those I loved and cared about. The art of a handwritten letter has been lost on most, but to me, there has always been something magical about a handwritten letter. It’s a labor of love. I imagine the sender carefully choosing the paper and favorite pen, or perhaps stealing away a moment during class, like my sister did in college, jotting the note on a piece of scrap paper and tucking it safely into a folded up envelope later on. With handwritten letters, they’re sending a piece of themselves to you—a moment in time that is captured permanently, not unlike a photograph, but much more intimately made. Even at thirty, I have a penpal, whom I adore!

I still marvel at the fact that you can take a piece of paper, compose a letter from anywhere in the world, and with an envelope and an eighty cent stamp that piece of paper will arrive in the hands of the recipient in a few short days or weeks as the case may be. It’s not as instantly gratifying as receiving and email or instant message, but the anticipation is a joy in and of itself, and a handwritten letter is a treasure, and a gift for both the sender and the recipient. I’ve come across many letters I’ve written in my childhood that various friends and family members have saved, and it is a gift to be able to go over old memories that seemed lost, but with an old letter come flooding back as if it were yesterday.

As a fifteen year old exchange student to Germany during the summer of 1992, I wrote a lot. Every day I would fill my Mead notebook with my teenage thoughts and perceptions of everything around me and most days I would also write letters to my family and friends. During my time in Germany I developed a special bond with my grandfather. My grandparents and I lived, up until that summer, in the same town so there was no particular need for writing each other aside from the yearly birthday and Christmas card. However, the summer I spent in Germany allowed for a type of communication between us that had not existed previously.

My grandfather and I wrote to each other regularly. Despite the week delay in receiving letters, we wrote fervently, fueled by the distance between us to say things that we had, perhaps, been unable to say while living in such close proximity. My grandfather is not a particularly good speller and spent most of his adult life having his thoughts transcribed by his secretary, at least in the business world, so for him to hunker down on his rusty old typewriter and compose a letter to his granddaughter was no small feat.

My grandfather would write with advice and observations on life and I, at the young age of fifteen, appreciated the sentiment even if I didn’t fully grasp the depth of his thoughts. He would always sign his letters with his signature phrase: “The Grandfather Who Writes.” I loved that phrase because it made me feel special, knowing he would always write to me, and it made me think my grandpa was special, too, because I knew that not all grandchildren had grandfathers who took the time to write such long letters. His signature is a thing of beauty, too, and I've often tried to mimic his flouncy letters, but like his writing style, they're distinctly his, and such things cannot be copied.

In later years I found out that my grandfather wrote letters to my cousins and siblings, as well, truly earning the title "The Grandfather who writes." My grandmother, spelling whiz and former editor of her high school newspaper would often scan my grandfather’s work for spelling mistakes and typos, encouraging him to white out the mistakes or start again. This was a humbling experience for my grandfather, founder and President of his successful business, who was used to giving orders. The fact that he asked his wife to proofread his letters makes me realize, years later, how important it was that he set things right. He was willing to sacrifice some pride in order to make sure his writing, and his life, were free of unnecessary mistakes and errors. I find this so endearing now, holding the lesson close to my heart, as I look back over the letters he wrote me and remembering the early years.

I don’t remember what my younger self wrote to him, but I know I answered every letter he wrote me, and he did the same. It was our unspoken rule. In fact, I'll never forget how, as an exchange student, my rather frugal grandfather spent $20 to expedite his last letter to me so I’d receive it before I left Germany. I remember being amazed when he told me he had overnighted it to the small town I was living in on the outskirts of Eastern Berlin. I vividly recall receiving his last letter before I returned home, and feeling the twinges of anticipation and excitement upon opening it. It was better than gold. For me, it was validation that grandpa loved me and that I was important enough to him to spend a whole twenty dollars on sending me his letter. My grandpa knew the importance of the written word, and the value of establishing a bond with his loved ones through his words. And while I can’t quite recall what his last letter said, I know that it was special to me, and insisted on keeping it with me in my carry-on, to ensure the airlines didn’t lose it somewhere between Europe and the States.

Fifteen years have passed since that first summer in Germany, and our letters have crossed many oceans and continents. My grandfather was my constant writing companion during my senior year in Europe, my summer in India, my years in Maine and Canada, as well as my four years of college in Minneapolis. In fact, since I’ve finally moved back home I miss the letters my grandfather would write so regularly while I was away. I have been able to spend quality time with my grandfather and hear many stories in person, but the act of him writing letters has vanished with his sight. Now blind and in ill health, my grandfather cannot see well enough to plunk at the old typewriter keys nor can he sit very comfortably at his desk. In fact, though I live above him now, I still miss that certain closeness that came with knowing that “the Grandfather Who Always Writes” had a letter on the way. While we still chat about life, we shared pieces of ourselves in our letters that are harder to share in person.

But we have a new routine that my dad started while I was in Taiwan, and it works just fine. My father now prints off my blog posts each week or two for my grandmother to read; she combs through them first, later reading each entry aloud to my grandpa. In some ways, this blog has become my letter writing outlet, as I’m able to continue sharing of myself through a medium I’m comfortable with; and so I continue to write, despite the frequent lack of written response because I, too, now know the value of establishing a bond with my loved ones through the written word. It is a lesson my grandfather taught me early on in life, and for that, and so much more, I am grateful to my Granfather Who Writes, and hope he is proud of me for still being his Granddaughter Who Writes, too. It's one label I continue to wear proudly.