I just got a promotional offer that I am going to be able to share with some of you readers. There’s a fun new service called Email To Postal which allows you to compose an email and them have it sent to someone’s actual postal mailbox. I am going to be giving away 5 coupons good for 10 credits each. To win, I’d like for you to tell me in comments about one really memorable piece of mail you’ve received.
One that comes to my mind is the letter I got from my grandmother one of the first days I lived in the dorms during my freshman year of college. It was such an encouragement to hear from her during those first scary and exciting days of college!
I’ll be awarding coupons to five random commenters on Monday morning. Is there someone in your life who would be encouraged right now by a letter from you? Tell me about that person too, if you’d like…..
My mom is not a letter writer by any stretch of the imagination. But when I went to sleep-away camp the summer before 7th grade, she found out from the other parents that if you got 3 or more pieces of mail on the same day, you got thrown into the lake!
5 days into camp, I got 7 letters from my mom. I still have them- somehow they didn’t get thrown into the lake with me:)
When I was 20 and moved to another state, I received a card and letter from my grandmother. That card made me feel loved and encouraged, even though she had recently asked that I move out of her house (which was supposed to be temporary to begin with). I had been engaging in some self-destructive behavior and it was just too stressful for her. I completely understood why she was asking me to leave and was ashamed that I’d damaged our relationship.
The letter I received 7 weeks later helped me start to forgive myself for my behavior and get to a point where I wanted to move on and be a better person. It was definitely a light during one of the darkest times of my life.
If I won, I’d use the credits to correspond with my grandparents and my husband’s grandparents that I just don’t sit down to write a letter often enough. It seems the ones who hear from me most are part of the technology age and have email.
What a fantastic company! Great for people like me.
My mom left a letter on my desk the night they moved me into the dorms. I cried like a baby for an hour after I read it.
Another letter I’m looking forward to is one from my grandmother- I know she wrote one and put it in my wedding 20 year time capsule. She’s been gone for seven years, and I have to wait another eight to read it.
I’d love this service for my four year old- she’s working on learning to spell and write but gets discouraged before she finishes a letter. I think she could get through typing a whole one and then it would actually get to the person. 🙂
A few years ago, as a new mother, I was feeling frustrated and concerned about my abilities. I am not much of a cook, I don’t sew much, I am not a great house-keeper, etc. I was talking with my mom about how I felt I didn’t have any talents. A few days later in the mail was a page torn off of those page-a-day-calendars. My mom sent it because it made her think of me. It read: Everyone has talents. I kept it hanging in the kitchen as a reminder of a) talents and b) a reminder of my mother’s love for me.
When I was 4, I was the flower girl in my Sunday School teacher’s wedding. I had hair to my waist, that refused to curl and she wanted little riglets. So, to my horror, I spent a week in rollers.
A whole week.
At the same time, I had a crush on a cute boy named John. His mom brought him over during this week, and I Was mortified (even at 4) to have to play with him with rollers in my hair.
A few days later, I got a not in the mail from him. It said:
“Dear Kelli,
I think you look pretty in rollers.
Love,
John G.”
And he sent me 4 jellybeans in the envelope.
I’m 42; and still have that note and the stale jellybeans, in my Hope Chest.
And, 12 years after that note?
I took that boy to the Sadie Hawkins dance, where he sang in my ear all night.
21 years later, that boy made sure I had food and drink in my hand throughout my wedding, and toasted my new husband for what a lucky man he was.
Kelli wins!
About a month after we officially adopted our two daughters I received an envelope from the adoption agency we used. Inside was a hand written letter from our girls’ mother addressed to K*** & K***’s New Parents. She went on to thank us for giving them a loving home and keeping both of them together. She told how she loved them so much but was unable to give them the proper care they deserved.
I cried and cried because most people have been critical towards her, but I know it took a whole lot of love to give them a better chance.
I recently showed this letter to my girls and they cried also. They know they were loved very much by their mom and only have good memories of her.
It is a letter we all cherish!
When I went away to college, my post office box in the college mail center was #01-42. My dad, despite being in a master’s program at the time, wrote to me nearly every day of the week for all of those four long years.
The last week of my senior year, he wrote six letters–all addressed to “Box 01-42”–turning it into a metaphor for me and the ways I had changed and grown over my time at college. In his last letter, he said “farewell” to Box 01-42 and told it how much it would miss this special way of communicating.
And I knew how loved I was.
My mom wrote me every single day of my freshman year of college! In the years that followed, she wrote me several times a week. Of course, my roommates were envious and often asked what it was that she had to write about. One piece that I particularly remember had a P.S. that let me know that they had had the family dog (whom we’d had since I was 4) put down due to poor health and very old age. They got a piece of my mind on the phone that night! I was so mad that they hadn’t talked to me first about it. I guess they didn’t realize that I wasn’t really aware of Ginger’s failing health. Several years later, my dad remembered my irritation over that and when it came time to say goodbye to another family dog for similar reasons, he was sure to call me first and make sure I was well-informed and had a chance to say goodbye to Honey Bear.
I am grateful for email now. I’m not sure I could even come close to my mom’s standard of letter-writing once my kids go to college!
When my husband and I were dating, we would try to see who could send the most unique mail back and forth. He went to the United States Naval Academy and we were not able to spend as much time together as we would have liked. Once he sent me a coconut from Key West, he painted the address and the note right on the coconut. Once I took an old vanity plate that had been on my car and taped some posterboard to the back and made it into a post card. I also sent him a poster of his favorite 80s band, RUSH, and my roomate and I put on lipstick and kissed all of over it. He was sort of embarrased but at the same time all of his friends were jealous. Another time I found a LARGE poster that had been drymounted in my college house, we were going to throw it away. I said, “Wait, that would make a giant postcard” That is exactly what I did. I sent it to my husband at his temporary duty station, he loved it!!!
He is still in the Navy and I just got a postcard in the mail from him today. He actually sent one to each of the kids and one to me, seperately. He still values mail and knows how good a person feels when they get their own mail!!!!
This post has really got me going. Once for my son’s birthday I made fish invitations and mailed them in small empty water bottles with fish confetti and blue cellophane. I think I make the postmaster’s day too when I bring in my unique mail. You would be surprised what you are able to mail, I encourage you to give it a try.
Thanks for taking me on a walk down memory lane.
Charlotte
All these were great—
but I especially loved Kelli’s, Amy’s and Charlotte’s….
Oh! and Carla, what a great mom—and Ali BG: your dad is a prince! Cherish those parents….
You too, Grace and Amanda—what precious parents.
And Holly—don’t we all intend to be those kind of grandparents some day? How dear that you have the time capsule to look forward to.
And Headless Mom!! How sweet to nominate someone else.
Mary—please pick all of them!
I got a card from my parents when I was about to graduate from university. It said how proud they were of me and that they were glad I was their daughter. They didn’t/don’t often tell me that they’re proud of me, so it really meant something. It still sits on my mantelpiece, three years later.
When I turned 18 and a freshman in college, I received a letter from my dad. Usually mom was the letter writer in our family. He outlined my past–beginning from when they were expecting me, their first child, our years in Ethiopia, and some future expectations and/or hopes as I became an adult.
I still have that letter and got it and read and cried when he passed away 2 years ago.
I grew up oldest of 8 kids of a military family. To say that we moved around a lot is a serious understatement. We never lived near any family and since we served overseas quite a bit, we only saw them about once every 3 years.
When I was entering high school, my uncle who had recently been married and had a baby was sent to Korea. For a year. Alone.
He began writing me, and only me, out of all my siblings. I had often felt discouraged at being the oldest… stuck babysitting, always having to be the ‘example’ for my brothers and sisters. He made me feel special.
He wrote to me like I was an adult. He made me feel validated for my feelings and worries and created a bond that I do not have with any other family member. Even to this day.
Over the years, we have remained close…. and I will never forget his selfless act of making one confused teenager feel loved and important.
I was raised by my grandparents for most of my life. When I turned 16, I received a letter from my mother, written in poetry form, about all of her memories of me from birth to the time she left (I was 6). Since I didn’t know anything about that time of my life, or really about her or why she left, it filled a huge hole that had been left in my heart. I was deeply moved by her honesty. It took great courage to be able to ask for my forgiveness and even more NOT to ask to be part of my life.
I had felt so angry about being abandoned, but learned why she did it and eventually forgave her. She now lives about a mile away from me.
I still have that letter and cherish it to this day, as I do my relationship with her.
The most precious letter I have was one I received from my younger brother. He wrote it to me from inside a humvee on his way into Iraq in April 2003. He was describing the scenery to me and shared his faith like he never had before. He is intensely private so to receive a note from his heart was priceless. He made it home from Iraq injured but well in spirit. I become frustrated sometimes at his lack of communication with me now but I keep the note in my top dresser drawer to remind me of his heart.
And the person who would probably like a note from me now is my other younger brother who is currently in Iraq. I send him packages of “stuff” and tell him that we are so proud of him and praying for him but I have difficulty connecting with him because of our age difference. He is so dear and thoughtful that I am sure he would appreciate a note from my heart rather than more granola bars (well at least once anyway;) I think I will go write to him now.
Thanks Mary!
Rebecca in NC
Wow, what a neat idea. I love so many of these posts above and I am glad that I read them. I tried to think of a letter that really touched me and can’t say that I have one. I have saved many letters over the years, but I am not a letter writer. Well not unless I can print it myself and send it that way. Or of course my email.
I did the other day find a letter in a box of photos that my mother wrote me when I graduated from high school. My high school years were rather, umm…dramatic? And caused our relationship to be very turbulant. The letter told me how proud she was of me and what a great young woman I had become. And honestly at the time I had no clue she even thought that. Of course in all my maturity at the time, I sorta huffed and giggled when I read it in front of my whole family, as they gave me my graduation gift. But many years later, and 9 years after loosing mom it was nice to see that lil note on the card she and dad gave me.
Other letters I have saved are first letters from my husband, letters from my great grandma in her final years. A first letter from a time when I met my biological father, and letters from both of my half sisters that they wrote right after they found out about me. I always keep cards and notes from my grandparents and family members. I am amazed at how well the generations before me are at actually writing down notes.
And in all this I have just thought of two more letters that are special in my head but are not from me or for me. My grandma always cuts out little newspaper articles and will write a short note to the recipient of the article. She used to do it for me often, she lived near my bio-dad and would send me articles when my sisters placed in a horse event or were in the paper (after I met them all). Well my daughter was born with mild CP and she rides horses through a therapeatic group locally. She is very good at this and is going to be competing not in a therapy level but in all levels this summer showing a horse. My grandmother saw an article about a group, in her state, much like the one my daughter rides for. She cut out the article, more like she tore out a whole page of her paper, and sent it with a cute note to my daughter, encouraging her to do her best with her riding.
Along the same note my daughter did a cross-word one weekend with my adoptive fathers girlfriend. They were really bonding sitting curled up on the couch together going over this puzzle, but they could not figure out all the answers. The next week my daughter got a note in the mail and I noticed it was from Dads girlfriend. Terri had sent my lil girl the answers to the puzzle from the paper and the one they had worked on along with a note telling her how wonderful it was to spend that time bonding with her. Both of these lil notes are still on dd’s wall. And both made me smile that these two woman, one who had been in my life forever and one whom had just came into my life recently really bonded and understood my girl. 🙂
Thanks for making me think about all this. I really had to smile as I read all of the above and thought of these special momentos in my life. I hope someone from above wins those coupons and that everyone gets special letters of love and encouragement in the future. 🙂
The comment from Kelli #5 made me cry……how sweeeet is that!!!! I was just skimming through, I will try to post later.
I’m obviously not eligible for the contest, being married to the lady who started email2postal, but one really meaningful bit of mail came in first grade. After president Reagan was shot, I wrote a letter to the White House – a kind of “get well soon” deal. Anyway, getting that real letter from the White House, with the seal and the ink signature (probably a signing machine) was really thrilling. I think I still have it somewhere in a box.
My dad died 5 years ago on Easter Sunday. He was a fabulous story-teller. I’m so grateful for all his stories; they are like treasures to me now that he is not with us. One of the stories I will always remember is about a letter he wrote to his dad when he was away in college. It went like this:
Dad,
No mon. No fun.
Your Son
My grandfather (a several-times published writer) sent the following back:
Son,
Too bad. So sad.
Your Dad
I think we all lived for mail when I was in college. Going to the mail box and actually finding a letter was a special thing. I rarely go real mail from my family because they were “only” 2 hours away from us…and my brother was at school with me. I do remember the couple of letters I received from my dad very fondly. My dad does not write. It is painfully difficult for him to put together sentences, never mind whole letters…so those letters meant a LOT to me.
I also have saved all of the correspondence from my husband when we were dating. I love going back and reading those, as they help me relive the excitement and mushy stuff of falling in love for the first time.
I think we all lived for mail when I was in college. Going to the mail box and actually finding a letter was a special thing. I rarely go real mail from my family because they were “only” 2 hours away from us…and my brother was at school with me. I do remember the couple of letters I received from my dad very fondly. My dad does not write. It is painfully difficult for him to put together sentences, never mind whole letters…so those letters meant a LOT to me.
I also have saved all of the correspondence from my husband when we were dating. I love going back and reading those, as they help me relive the excitement and mushy stuff of falling in love for the first time.
A cool idea.
A letter that meant a lot to me: a few months after we married, we rescued a little dog from an unfortunate situation, but then later had to give her away. We took her to the animal shelter, absolutely heart broken. I did take the time to write a letter about her history, how old she was, what we had taught her, etc. So sad — even my husband cried when we left her.
Then a month or two later we got a letter from the older couple who had adopted her. I SO appreciated them taking the time to let us know that she was doing well.
My most memorable letter came to me about 5 years ago and was from my sister. I was 45 and I had never talked to her or seen her or met her before. I had been placed for adoption as an infant and she was my older birth sister and never knew about me. I always knew I had a sister some where out there and longed for her all of my life. I had been adopted and lived my life as an only child. When I found my birthmom. I waited a week to see if or when my sister would contact me… When she did she told me she loved me and wanted to meet me and it could not happen soon enough for her. Since then we spend as much time together as we can. But it is never enough. I see me in her face, in her walk and in her laugh. We are so much alike. We are very close now and I am so thankful to have the blessing of knowing her even if we did not find each other till later in our lives. One of the things I find so interesting about my sister and me is we both have Asian daughters…. Mine were adopted and hers was born to her but when we see baby pictures of them it is hard to tell them apart. One of God’s funny miracles.
Dawn
In OR.
I have a letter that my Mom wrote to my science teacher in 1979. It lives in my sock drawer, pretty much where it has been since I found it in 1994, after my mother’s death.
I love it because it is in her handwriting and because it just shows the essence of who my Mother was. She wrote to my teacher to tell him that she triple spaced my paper and widened the margins b/c that is what she always did to make her papers look longer. Unfortunately, I told my Mom after she was finished typing that she had made the paper tooo long – it was only to be 5 pages.
Her letter was laced with humor – although at the time I was not laughing, only mortified that she would attach this letter (written on Current folding stationary with a cute little design on it) to my science paper.
In the end, my Mom came through and retyped my paper – that was in the old days of real typewriters and I had flunked typing. That was a lot of work on my Mom’s part.
That almost 30 year old letter is a small thing, but something so precious to me now. In fact it is something I could see myself doing – although I don’t type my kids papers – I guess she was a nicer Mom than me.
On the outside of the stationary, my Mom had written – Please do not count this as a page 🙂
So for all you fellow bloggers, while the family stories that we archive are priceless – please remember to leave your some handwritten treasures for your children – journal or recipes. One day they will cherish them.
I come from an Asian family and my mum can only speak and read very little english.
She thought I will have a brighter future in an english learning environment so she placed me in an english language school (a mission school). I learned english well but never learned to read and write Chinese.
A few years ago, I went for a three-month outdoor expedition and my mum knew all my friends will be receiving letters from their family. She started writing to me even though she only knew very few words in english.
Finally, my brother wrote to tell me that mum’s been at the study table writing every day but each time, she kept crossing out her sentences and words and never got anywhere.
I did receive one precious letter from my mum after all that.
My mother passed away when I was 24. Her relationship with her mother had always been strained and at that time I hadn’t seen my grandmother in 8 years. When my uncle died a few years back, it was a total of 20 years since I’d had any contact with my grandmother. At my uncles funeral, I met her, talked with her, and had her in my house. Soon afterwards, she sent me a bundle of letters. They were letters my mother had written to my grandmother in a time when they were emotionally close – letter after letter in my mothers beautiful penmanship talking about my brothers wrestling tournaments, my first boyfriend, and our lives. There was the occasional letter written by pre-teen me, but it is the chance to relive a period of time, and to hear my mothers voice in my head as she recounts the events from her perspective that I treasure so much. I don’t want to win a contest – I’m not much of a letter writer now, but thanks for the chance to share my story!