Excuses

He doesn't call...He doesn't write. Clearly there can be no excuse!

I love the old red phone boxes and post boxes. How long has it been since anyone received a letter in the mail? Not those horrid windowed envelopes that drop through the door with alarming regularity. A proper hand written letter, in ink, on writing paper ?

As children, we were made to sit and write our thank you notes after Birthday and Christmas presents had arrived from elderly aunts. How I hated it. I found it excruciating having to think of something interesting to say that would fill a page. I can remember pleading to be allowed to just ring up and say thank you. How grateful I am now that we were taught the art, and importance, of letter writing.

When I was about 16 I used to write letters to my cousin away at war, and the excitement of the postman delivering a reply was immense! Tales of daily life in another country not only brought him home for a little while, but taught me about places I would never go, of things I would never see (thank God) and, which I only found out years and years later, kept someone I loved very much, a little saner for having had a envelope of normality delivered in the middle of madness.

Years later I confessed that I had been embarrassed at the thought of how silly my teenage letters must have sounded to a man fighting in a war. I was told that I could have written a bunch of recipes for all he cared...just to be the lucky sod who received an envelope from home on post day! I have the letters I received in return to this day. Gorgeous thin airmail paper, covered in his distinctive writing and filled with cartoons and memories.

I have other letters too. After I qualified and started working, I moved into a flat with two friends. We had a ball for a year, and then Penny moved to England. I was devastated. For the rest of the time that I lived in the flat we had shared, she sent me a weekly letter. Religiously. Once a week the fat envelope would plop into our mail box in the foyer. It was all I could do to wait the 11 floors up in the elevator before opening it. The letters were like magical treasure. From the opening of the decorated envelope to pulling out the sheets of paper, and pictures and little gifts that she would fill the letter with, to the reading of the last line, those hours spent lost in her adventures in London, were both complete escapism and a reassurance that she was not all that very far away.

My family laugh at me now because I have an old leather suitcase filled with these and other precious letters, all neatly bundled. They can laugh all they like. I love them.

Last Friday I received a letter! I knew from the writing exactly who it was from. One of the now very elderly aunts, to whom I had written so many times as a child, had sent me a letter. It was a thank you letter for something that I had sent her. For such an elderly lady, her writing is both pretty and strong, and she did a much better job of filling her page with interesting things than I ever had! In addition to the letter she had included some newspaper cuttings, some of which had been saved since 1947. The cuttings were all, in some way, connected to her brother, who was my dad. My dad, who had insisted all those years ago that we write our thank you letters!

And now, since I can never call or write to him again, I am so grateful for the snippets I do have. So no more excuses, write them a letter... they will be so glad you did. You may even get a reply!