How to Write a Letter
Keeping in touch the old-fashioned way.
by Whitney Bailey
Have you ever looked through a box of your parent’s or grandparent’s memorabilia, and stumbled across a stack of treasured letters? It’s amazing to think that what we now call “snail mail” was the only way many military wives of the past had any contact with their loved ones. Neatly printed or hastily scrawled, a letter from home was a treasure and “mail call” was an event. Today, e-mails are great for speed and quantity, but nothing beats the personal and romantic touch a letter can bring.
When my husband was deployed, receiving e-mail was instant gratification. It can take mere seconds to send one, and so we easily sent thousands back and forth during his 15-month deployment. But letters were a different matter. First, they require patience. Second, they require materials; paper, a pen, an envelope and stamp, and a hand that doesn’t cramp up after a few lines. They also require forethought. It’s so easy to send an e-mail on the day of an anniversary, but it makes it all the more special if you have to plan as much as several weeks in advance in order to get a letter there on or before the special day.
And nothing can match the giddy excitement of getting a letter in the mail. Bill, bill, credit card offer, letter! Just the handwritten name and address is enough to get my heart beating faster. I’ll admit, I was not always able to decipher my husband’s handwriting, and I wrapped up a few letters early when my hand began cramping up. And even though I’m a writer, my letters weren’t always so eloquent without the benefit of the delete button or spell check. Despite its shortcomings, my hoard of letters holds far more value to me than my hard drive of e-mails.
A letter also holds so many little secrets and mysteries that no e-mail can rival. A whiff of perfume or cologne, a heart dotted “i” or a small memento from a dinner that you wished you could have shared. Not every letter has to be a novel. One letter from my husband was on the torn-off corner of a piece of paper and simply said, “I was walking by the post office and thought of you.”
For Christmas, I asked him what he wanted. “Just write me a letter,” he said. Eight pages later (front and back) my hand had frozen into a claw but I smiled with pride as I licked the stamp. It was a rush to get it into the mail almost a month before Christmas, but he received it in time, with my “Do not open until Christmas!” instructions emblazoned on the envelope. That letter wasn’t the only thing he got from me, but it was the only thing he wanted.
While many of the letters I received (and sent) made me blush, I can’t imagine not having them in my hands to read over and over in the years to come. They’ll be in a box, waiting for my children or grandchildren to stumble upon and hopefully inspire their own excitement over this already lost art.