Lost Arts

I live in the midwest. It gets cold here during the winter. Not "it's a little chilly I'll get a sweater cold", but freeze your face off when you go out to get the mail cold. Cold enough that my dog collapses when she goes out to the yard. Cold enough to call off school, but even too cold to go out to play in the snow because the snow has turned to ice. So we're home today from school, entertaining ourselves after being home for 2 weeks for Christmas.

One thing on my "to do" list today was to help my son finish his thank you cards. He's one of those "lucky" kids to have his birthday fall only a week after Christmas. With his birthday came presents. Wonderful gifts from wonderful people who know him so well that as each gift was opened it was very clear how much time and effort was taken by his friends to choose just the right thing for Adam's interests and hobbies. I was amazed at the variety of gifts and at the perfect choices for my son's personality. Such care and thoughtfulness!! Writing thank-you cards is something we have always done in our house. Since the kids were babies and couldn't write yet, their scribbles on a note written by me were sent to those who took the time to celebrate them in some way. My kids know that this is something they will be doing when they receive a gift. Not that they ENJOY it really yet :) but they do know that I will help. Today we sat down to write and at 11 years old Adam wrote his own messages. I addressed the envelopes for him and sat with him at the table so he would have company. On occasions like birthdays where there are many gifts we might break down the list into smaller sessions to lesson the "I'm missing out on something somewhere else!" factor. I've found that writing thank-you notes, and any other kind of letter actually, is something of a lost art. With texting and email the handwritten note has almost totally disappeared. But who doesn't love getting mail? That break from junk mail and bills to find an envelope addressed to you in handwriting you recognize.

But there's another lost art. Handwriting. My 2nd grader came home from school yesterday very excited about what happened in school. Super excited. Jumping up and down excited. Nope, not a school pet or extra recess. "We started learning cursive mom! Like big kids!" She was thrilled to be learning how to read cursive handwriting and write it. Many schools have done away with cursive saying it is old-fashioned and unnecessary when we have computers to type on, spell check, and texting.

I love writing letters. I love writing them in my own handwriting. I have saved letters from my grandmother that passed away many years ago, her own handwriting so easily recognizable to me and harder to read as she got older, but continued to write. Letters from my dad, my husband, my preschool aged kids, cards from my mother, letters from high school crushes and letters from family or friends who have both healed and hurt my heart. These letters are proof that someone has taken the time to sit down, and think about me in some way. Someone took time from their busyness to put me in their thoughts for longer than a text, longer than a commercial on tv, more than a box to check off the "to do" list.

So although it is a lost art, we will continue to write thank you notes to show appreciation and grateful hearts for people who took time to think of us. We will write them in our own handwriting and maybe someone, somewhere is saving one of our notes in a special box on their dresser. Like I do with mine.