Love letters for today

By Jeanna Hofmeister
Reader Contributor

If you were 15 in the 70s, long before the days of free long distance and the internet, you lived and died by the daily mail, hoping your summer boyfriend from Sandpoint sent a letter to you. That was my experience, growing up in Seattle, but spending every summer on our family’s farm in Samuels. Each letter made a connection that went beyond teen love. It was deep. It mattered, especially when long distance cost $3.50 a minute. (Yes – it once did.)

That boy I fell in love with is thankfully now my husband, but the gravity of his handwritten letters has never been lost on me. In fact, even now, when I pick up the mail, all the bills and trash mail are quickly cast aside to tear into the occasional handwritten birthday or holiday card.

Handwritten letters are powerful. They’re the kinds of communication we save for months – for some of us, maybe years. I never wonder why. The handwritten word is a serious indicator that someone actually cared enough about you to take the time to pen a personal note. Even better if it’s a few pages that speak of their lives and experiences at the moment.

I still have the letters my father wrote my mother more than 60 years ago. I reread them sometimes as a way to ground myself in the fact that I was a loved and wanted child, even though I was conceived out of wedlock – a shocking diversion for the cultural norm of the ’50s. 

But it seems to me, we’ve perhaps lost the power of a handwritten word. Given it away for the ease of a quick text or email. Maybe, if we’re lucky, there’s a phone call to check in, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s simply not the same as that letter you read, and then maybe reread a half dozen times more, just in case you missed some important nuance of a loved one’s life.

My nieces have been coached by their single father to start writing us handwritten letters. The best thing is their literal way of looking at the world through the lens of a kid. Oh my gosh, those will be words we’re giggling about years later and will share with them when they’re old enough to know how to spell all the words right.

This week we received the first of our “quarantine letters.” One with a set of clues to be solved and responded to. One from our daughter in Missoula to say she and her husband are locked down and doing just fine. Another, a postcard from a sister in Coeur d’Alene with just a few meaningful words – “We’re thinking of you and loving you.”

While we’re so busy physically distancing from one another, there’s never been a better time to pen a handwritten letter to someone you love. It could be that bright spot that keeps them hanging on to hope at a time when things, frankly, feel a little damned bleak. 

It doesn’t need to be anything profound. It only needs to be an expression of you. A few lines that give someone else some insight into your day, whether you’re far away – or close. No rules around writing to your local peeps too.

If you’re out of practice, consider it a chance to polish up your cursive writing skills. If you’re writing to your grandkids, it might be a lesson for them in how to read and learn cursive! But even if you print that handwritten note, count on knowing that right now, there’s one thing that’s certain in an uncertain time: you love who you love, and there’s never been a better time to say so.