Pen Pals

A dying art of correspondence between friends.

My friend Gail and I, reading something. I think we’re about four years old here in her parent’s apartment.

The arrival of the mail used to be a high point of the day. We don’t even go to the box every day, knowing we’ll only find political circulars, bills, and Medicare Advantage solicitations.

But last night my husband handed me a letter. My childhood friend Gail and I have been corresponding with a few gaps here and there since our twenties. Our families were intertwined for three generations, and the roots go deep. My mother grew up in the same church as her father. Gail’s parents moved back to my mother and her father’s hometown a month apart in 1957.

Getting a letter from this friend—who still lives in my hometown—fills me with joy.

We both still have our elderly fathers and unwittingly shared a similar experience with them recently. Both men graduated from Purdue University, her father gaining a PhD in nutrition, and my father a master’s degree in agriculture education. When Purdue, now doing well in NCAA men’s basketball, changed the broadcast venue from NBC to Peacock, life as we know it nearly stopped.

The photo was likely taken the same day as above, but you can see Gail’s face.

Both men have experienced many losses, but the ability to watch their Boilermakers wasn’t going to be one of them. In the letter, my friend regales her family’s attempt to get service in a home with no Internet. (Roku with a mobile hotspot from the local library.) My father lives in assisted living, and Peacock wasn’t among the included channels, so my brother jumped through hoops (terrible pun) to make it happen.

All is calm now, at least until this weekend when there’s another “game of the year.”

I read the part of the letter to my husband about my friend’s family scrambling to get Peacock for their father. My husband nodded and laughed in recognition and understanding. Both of these men are giants, albeit stubborn giants, who were wonderful fathers and husbands, grandfathers, civic and church leaders, and outstanding in their respective fields (which for my dad was an actual field.) Both cared for their long-term spouses who had dementia and ultimately died.

For more than 40 years, my friend and I have sent our missives to each other across the state, though we rarely see each other in person.

I used to have many pen pals. Society has changed, and while I’m still in touch with many old friends, very few write letters. I’m a collector of fountain pens and I still have boxes of notecards and various types of nice stationery. But my handwriting has deteriorated and I can’t often read my own words, so I type letters now. And they are fewer and far between than they were.

Several of my friends make lovely handmade cards and are so good about sending them. While I don’t always respond in kind, these cards are appreciated and treasured.

Stamps are a fortune now, and I can reach anyone—including my friend who sent the letter yesterday—by email, text, or Facebook chat.

But we all know it isn’t the same.

My high horse is lonely today because I know personal letters are not on the radar of the generations that follow me. I savor personal letters differently than I do a text, an email, or a Facebook message. In some ways, it is a gift that the person on the other end took their precious time to give a piece of themselves to you. Thank you, Gail.

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