Recently I found a box of letters my mother had saved – dating back to the 1970s. There were letters from Japan I had to use Google Translate to understand and letters from my American grandmother and spunky great-aunt Chris. Some letters were even from me during 1994 when we lived in the UK.
The bundle of letters from my mother’s sister in Japan contained pressed leaves and flowers. My mother used to send greeting cards that included pressed leaves and four-leaf clovers. I send greeting cards with pressed leaves and flowers.
The handful of letters to my mother from my dad’s mother and his aunt showed how his relatives loved my mother and tried to support her during my parents’ divorce, a devastating time for my mom. Reading the letters, I loved these family members even more. The last letter from my grandmother was written on the back of a greeting card and she noted her breathing had gotten bad—she died the following spring when I was away at college. The last letter saved from Aunt Chris was written two years before she died. The handwritten letters held dear memories of people I loved but long gone. Their letters held memories I did not want to throw away despite my big project of downsizing.
Nowadays people don’t write letters, they text on cell phones, even post or message on Facebook. Maybe call on special occasions. Email is out, too old school. Nothing to save to look back on, to remind of what was. No more handwritten messages holding physical remnants of someone’s life. No more pressed leaves or flowers sent. All the more reason to write the stories. Save the memories somehow.
moonbridgebooks 
Well-said, Linda. My mother gave me a box of letters written between she and my father, from 1957-1975. She asked me not to open the box until after she died. I started reading them last year and it is like a time-tunnel visit, not only with my parents, but with two passionate young people dealing with the challenges of being in love and apart while raising five children. It’s a treasure beyond measure and it makes me sad that we don’t hand-write letters anymore.
Yes, there’s nothing like the old letters to capture feelings and daily life goings on. I think hardly anyone writes emails like that to save and look back on – they’d just get lost in the multitudes anyway, especially for people who don’t organize their email. Nowadays people mostly just “talk” to each other via snippets of text and Facebook. I recently received from my dad a box of old photos and a couple letters my grandmother saved from ME while I was away at college – I loved reading my thoughts to her about college life.