“Words of Love”

~ Elizabeth

loveletters

Back before the internet, email or cell phones, when long distance calls were expensive, people stayed in touch through the mail. And those in love sent each other love letters. Some families treasure old love letters that were saved and tucked away only to resurface after a death. Unfortunately, my mother destroyed my father’s love letters to her, so I never got to read about the beginnings of their relationship. But I have words of love about my grandfather from my grandmother.

In general, I think, love letters went back and forth when couples were separated by distance. During the wars letters, heavily censored, kept couples connected. When I was in Oregon and the logger was in Alaska, we wrote letters. When I was in Massachusetts for a month, a romantic interest and I kept up a steady stream of letters. Most of those were about ideas, books and music, not what one typically imagines when thinking of “love letters.” But the “I miss you” and “I really miss you” can only fill so much paper!

I can’t imagine that people today are sending many love letters. Even our local card store has replaced its abundance of cards for a small corner offering. The rest of the place was turned over to gifts and clothing. And here postage has now gone to 55cents, a pretty strong disincentive to write when email is free.

Still there is nothing like the physicality of a hand written letter. There is the particular handwriting of the other. Sometimes there is even a little token enclosed, a sticker or a clipping, or a photo. I can’t imagine people hanging onto emails in the same way that we hung onto letters. And while I used to read and reread letters, I never do that with email and certainly not with texts, no matter how filled with kiss emojis.

30 thoughts on ““Words of Love””

  1. How I would go back to those times. I love letters and love letters from my sweetheart always mean so much more than any gift he could ever buy me. Letter( the words written from someone’s heart) are not seasonal. They are cherished for seasons long after the sender is gone.

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  3. My husband and I each have our own office, which we like to say is one reason we’ve stayed married for 33 years. LOL. Anyway, we’ve been known to have conversations with each other on Facebook, which has our friends laughing and asking, “Do you two actually speak to each other?”

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  5. Receiving those snail mails are still as exciting as before. I still have those letters even wayback in high school, not all of them are love letters though, they are mostly from friends.

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  6. Electronic communication is one aspect of ‘progress’ that is not at all better than what it replaced.
    A while back, I was told by a former love that she still keeps a particular letter I sent her, more than 21 years after receiving it.
    Best wishes, Pete.

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  7. Lovely post Elizabeth.
    On love letters, I am reminded of the school days when love letters were the norm.
    In fact i was good in writing them to the extend that my friends used to get them written by me.
    Instead of speaking, the letter was given to the loved one in the same class even

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  8. I treasure the love letters between my parents and my grandparents. I even wrote a few myself. I loved using sealing wax or a SWAK on the back. My dad always hid a message under the stamp for my mom. Truly a time gone by.

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  9. Young people of the future reading Grandma and Grandpa’s texts with love token emojis. Ha! I like that image.

    Arthritis now makes writing more painful, but I still sometimes like writing letters on beautiful stationery.

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