Today I received a text from a dear friend. She wrote:

“Thinking of you. I hope this note finds you well. Today would have been June’s birthday. We spent many of her birthdays together. It’s interesting—I’m currently reading a book titled The Correspondent. It’s about an extremely intelligent woman in her seventies who is strong, direct, and unafraid to say exactly what she thinks. She writes letters to people and receives handwritten letters and emails in return. The whole book is told through her correspondence. As I read it, at times I can hear June’s voice.”

Her message touched me. I wrote back, “Thank you for remembering June today and honoring her with such sweet remembrances. Your mention of the book reminds me of my mom. Her spirituality, in many ways, was expressed through her letter writing.”

My mother lived to the lovely age of ninety-eight. She was someone who never forgot a birthday or a special occasion. A card or letter would always arrive, thoughtfully written in her familiar hand. Her letters to me often included little clippings from the local newspaper with tidbits about happenings in the community.

Back then, life in this quaint Vermont town seemed so safe and simple. Sometimes the biggest piece of news was that someone’s pumpkin had been stolen from their porch. Even those small stories carried a kind of warmth, a sense of belonging to a place and to its people.

My mom also saved every letter she received over the years. Reading them decades later is like opening small windows into the past. Through them you discover stories, voices, and moments that form the quiet threads of family history.

Among the most precious are my father’s love letters to my mother written while he was overseas during World War II. When my parents married, my father had to report for duty the very next day. Soon after, he was shipped overseas and did not see my mother again for four long years. Those letters carried their love across an ocean and through a war.

My mom also kept the letters my eldest brother, Phillip, wrote home while serving in the Vietnam War. These letters hold more than personal memories—they carry the weight of history, written in the ordinary words of people living through extraordinary times.

Letter writing, it seems, is becoming a lost art. The age of technology and the convenience of instant communication through texting and email have largely replaced what we now call “snail mail.” Yet somehow, a handwritten letter feels different. It carries the presence of the person who wrote it, their time, their thoughts, and even the shape of their handwriting.

To receive such a letter now feels like a beautiful gift.

I loved that my friend reached out today, sharing a glimmer of memory about June. I told her she had inspired me to write this journal reflection.

She replied, “I know, I want to write a letter.”

And I wrote back, “Me too.”

Perhaps that is how traditions quietly return, not through obligation, but through memory, longing, and the simple desire to reach out to someone we care about, pen in hand.

Liz Sorensen Wessel
(This photo of my parents was taken on their wedding day)