Pen Pals

I don't seem to have any good stories to tell these days -- and if I do, they are so brief and farm-centered that they don't seem worthy of a retelling.  This is what happens when the days are filled with thinking about work lists and logistics and moving things from one place to the next.  For example, this morning I woke up early so I could make something for our farm lunch and then pick some mint and dandelion greens for market and then head down the road with Carrie so we can join the crew to pick in Loudoun... Not very interesting to most people.

However, I am connected to an interesting story through texts and emails.  A little over a week ago Nell's mother (who is referred to by her children as Mama) had a serious stroke. She is 87 and had been in a slow decline for the last few months.  She has maintained her Mama-ness through each small loss, resisting some of the inevitable changes but being gracious to the caregivers who come each day.  Mama lives in South Carolina in a tiny town, and she has firmly insisted on remaining in her big old Victorian house -- not moving to another town, not moving to an apartment, not losing her sense of place.  She loves her garden and she loves her house. She has poured all of her energies into making those spaces beautiful for most of her adult life.

Anyway, she had a stroke and her caregiver was there and knew exactly what to do.  Mama was taken by helicopter to a hospital in a much larger city, everyone was alerted, and Nell packed her bags and drove south.  Mama lost her ability to swallow and her speech is fuzzy, but she did not lose her essence, and that is a blessing.

Over the next few days, Nell and her siblings wrestled with the choices that were available and they eventually decided that their mother would most want to go home. She would not want a stomach tube, she would not want to go to a care facility with strangers, and she would only want to live out the rest of her days in the place that she had created and inhabited and loved since the early days of her marriage. After much work and many important conversations, they moved Mama  back home with her original caregiver and a hospice team.  The family is spending time together at home. 

I have not had any phone conversations with Nell -- we don't talk on the phone, in general.  For almost 20 years, Nell and I have been pen pals.  Of course we see each other a few times a week, usually, in one context or another, but most of our conversations are done by correspondence. We discovered long ago that we both love to write letters and we really love to get letters. And we are so incredibly lucky that someone invented the internet just for us. It is the most wonderful tool for those of us who love sending and receiving real mail.  Our two other best friends have been dragged into this practice, sort of, but they are not the letter-writing fiends that we are.  They do other things with their very rare free time.

In the last week, all four of us have been in constant contact through brief texts, long messages that Nell laboriously pokes out on her phone, and substantive emails.  If we hadn't already been in the habit, those of us who are not in B-ville would be entirely out of the loop. Nell would have done all the hard work that she is doing, but we would have missed its day by day process, and we would never have had the chance to keep sending our (virtual but very real) support.

So now I am even more convinced that people need to learn to write letters again.  In the olden days, that was the practice for everyone who was apart (if they could write, of course -- I am generalizing hugely).  I have thought for years that if there was one course that I would like to teach to high school kids, it would be the art of letter writing, and the importance, and the historical value, and the incredible meaning that comes from communicating regularly through writing.

I was born before this instant communication became an option, of course, so my letter-writing habit was started in the days of the Pony Express.  I have to say that I have had only three boyfriends in my life, and all three of them became regular correspondents while we were entangled.  Even boys can learn to do this.  Even Jon.  So I know that with the right inspiration, just about anyone can learn to think to someone else through the written word.

I am so thankful right now that Nell is such a faithful pen pal. I can't be in that Victorian house with that family and their Mama/Grammie, and I shouldn't be, but I feel like I am practically in the next room, waiting for the next postcard to slide under the door.