A recent incident tugged at my heart. We received a post card from our daughter who is studying in kindergarten. Her teacher made the kids write a postcard on the occasion of valentine day to their parents expressing their love. The teacher also made them post those cards. It was a lovely surprise to receive the card.
It made me go back and dig out my old correspondence from the attic. There are scores of letters and greeting cards which I saved over the years. I also found an old address book which contained (now outdated) contact details of various people ranging from my school teachers to celebrities.
I spent innumerable Sundays writing pages and pages of letters. Somehow I could never fit in my letters on a postcard or in the blue inland envelope. The replies that I got back are equally lengthy. Nothing significant was discussed in the letters expect mundane life happenings which we simply wanted to share.
There are greeting cards for all occasions. For my birthday – every year and during the New Year. (now e-cards are a click away). What I treasure most are the cards that I received on special occasions – the one sent by my school teacher after I won one of the prestigious competitions, inspirational cards by some when I was going through tough phases, the one that my Dad gave when I joined my first job, the one sent by my sister expressing the importance of our relationship, some cards given by my husband on various occasions. Then there are cards that friends sent for no specific reason other than the fact that they remembered me.
I felt a surge of emotions as I went through each one. All those memories came back as I fondly remembered the people who touched my life over the years.
I really am sorry that letter writing is no longer there and I felt bad that my daughter would miss out on all the fun.
I love this post. This is exactly how I feel about letter writing! I think it's wonderful you did the card with your daughter. My grandmother influenced me to be a letter writer, so maybe if you work with your daughter she will "catch the bug"!
ReplyDeleteIf you want to do more letter writing stuff, check out passionforletters.com
That should hve been a great pleasant surprise.
ReplyDeleteWonder what... on a very similar note, just about
recently for my birthday itself when we invited two of our family frnds for an get together, their little daughter about 4+ yrs, gave me a birthday wishes card that wasn't purchased... but handmade thru her drawings with crayons and such. It was her simple fuzzy drawings with crayons on a hard paper and folded with edges colored too... & i was so very pleased and thankful to this little girl..! & so shud u hve been seeing that of ur own daughter.
Btw... what was most funny in her card.. was it said:
ANCLE, Happy Birthday. (and then 'A' was overwritten with 'U.'. soo.. original). Yes, such ones are tresures of life.
On this note, i can tip-off to reading parents that
at every occasion that we could, we can hand-make or atleast buy cards for our kids and give/surprise them... ,
like for their birthdays, or when they did great at that school function, or when they scored a cent in math that puzzled us!:) or for that matter for anything...
just if we liked their smile and cheek!..when they
had that mouthful icecream!
Mind u... they dont hve to turn 4 or 5 for us to start giving them these...!
They can be even 4 months or Just Born! (as i did one to mom & just born daughter then!) and treasure it now for their sake, which when they are at an age that they can understand..would love us more and treasure them dearer.... rite?
- ANCLE...again!