A Box of Letters. (THE Box of Letters.)

My best friend since college visited me a couple of weeks ago. While she was here, I pulled out a box full of letters, many of them from her. They span years, marriages, children, ZIP codes. Doubts, hopes, losses. 

We read through some of them, laughing at certain parts. Reading other passages and feeling other ways. 

In the same box, I keep letters from my favorite cousin and also from our dear friend who passed away three years ago from cancer. We read a few of hers, too, remembering. 

I’d recognize the handwriting from all of them anywhere, always. 

Somewhere below their letters, there’s a bundle of letters from my mother. She didn’t raise me, and she doesn’t want to be in touch now, but I can’t throw away her letters. I just can’t. 

Not that I plan to read them again, not anytime soon, but they’re a part of our story, no matter what. 

Also in the box, several sticker-decorated letters from a favorite aunt who is no longer with us. (The one whose banana bread recipe I posted a few days ago.)

Letters from my sister when she lived in Korea for two years. 

Through many moves over decades, I’ve managed not to lose that box. 

It’s as valuable as that. 

We simply don’t (often) hold emails or text messages as carefully or fondly in our hands or hearts. There’s something about handwriting and the time it takes to write thoughts and events down on paper. it can't be replicated.

Other ways of communicating have their place, but only a letter can provide that specific tactile, sensory, nostalgic feeling. 

Parts joy and ache and memory.

Life.