Reader letters make life worth writing about

Photo by Ire Photocreative on Unsplash.

I like to read emails and letters from readers. People don’t have to write something and send it to someone they really don’t know. Still, many of you do, and it means something to me.

Sending someone a note of encouragement, a quick message that shares good feelings, seems like an act of courage these days. Especially if it comes in the mail in a nice note with a stamp on the envelope. That means that someone did take time to do something that people just don’t do anymore.

Those kinds of notes are very special. A reader recently sent me a Thanksgiving card. Yes, there are cards that commemorate Thanksgiving. It had a nice scripture inside from the book of Psalm: Give thanks to Him and give Him praise.

In the card, the writer shared about her brother Ruben who is in a nursing home. He suffers from dementia and only speaks in simple phrases. “He is 76 years old and I’m his older sister,” she wrote. She said that she enjoys reading articles that remind her about their life as kids.

We all want to remember life as it was during our childhood. A time we didn’t know was passing us. A time we mostly remember for the goodness it gave us. Memories of falling down and getting back up again. Everything was bigger, brighter, and endless.

She reminded me about that in her card. That’s what writing does. It tells you that the best in life is shared between people, writing to each other. Communicating what they share in common and also what makes them different. Writing is best when it goes back and forth. Most writing doesn’t do that anymore.

I once got an email from a reader who wrote about the first real winter she experienced. It was great to read something that was special to her. How cold she felt and how it was something magical growing up. Another email I received was from a reader who asked where I grew up because in her mind I must have grown up in a town just like hers. It brought a smile to my face.

We like to feel that we are more alike than we are different. That what we learned growing up where values we all shared. That what we…