By JESSICA MCCOY
In the age of instant messages, video chat, e-mail and text messages, where communication has become so easy and quick, it is comprehensible but unfortunate that the art of letter writing has become so obsolete.
One of the first forms of communication was letter writing. In times before electricity and phone lines, letter writing was the only way one could communicate over long distances.
There are books upon books of collected letters that people have written to family members during war and from those who lived across the country. These letters are filled with the history our ancestors
experienced.
John and Abigail Adams are remembered through letters they wrote each other during his stay in Philadelphia, while he was at work in the Continental Congress.
In Nancy Regan’s book; I Love You, Ronnie, letters between the former president and her span from when they met in 1950 to more recent ones. The letters were written back and forth no matter how busy the former president
was at the time.
“Dear Mrs. Reagan… Mr. Reagan is head over heels in love with Mrs. Reagan and can’t even imagine a world without her–He loves her… Signed-Mr. Reagan”
Another example is one of the most famous love letters of American history, the letter Sullivan Ballou wrote to his wife a week before he fought in the First Battle of Bull Run. The letter portrayed the immense amount of love he had for his wife before he went to battle.
“My Dearest Sarah,… Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break… If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you, nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name…”
Sullivan was killed a week later in battle.
When one writes a letter, so many aspects go into it. There is more time to think about what one is putting pen to paper about. Taking the time to write a letter gives the writer time to really think about what one has to say.
Receiving a short impersonal text message is nothing in comparison to receiving a lengthy handwritten letter from a friend or family member. After a few days, the text is lost to one’s delete box, but the letter is folded up and kept to be reread, each time instilling the feeling one felt upon first
reading it.
When the receiver of such a letter reads it, he or she feels special. It is obvious the writer took time out of his day to write something significant. The effect is overall more personal.
The nostalgic feel of a letter is not a feeling one can get from a hasty text or impersonal e-mail. A letter gives the feel of times before the electronic craze.
Almost every teenager has access to a cell phone or computer to write a quick message, but every teenager also has access to a pen or pencil and a piece of paper to write a thoughtful letter.
The idea of a message being sent electronically is appealing, but saving time is really not more important than carefully thinking out and writing down what one has to say to another.
Constantly receiving e-mail and text messages so often takes the thrill out of receiving a message, but opening the mail and receiving a weathered envelope that is addressed to you sparks another emotion.
The next time you get ready to move your fingers across a cell phone’s keyboard, instead pick up a pen and take the time to convey a personal message.