Did you have a pen pal when you were young? I remember mine well.  Her name was Ann Morgan and she was from England. It was exciting to have a “friend” who lived in a foreign country.  We wrote religiously every week and I raced to the mailbox every day in anticipation of her letters.  They arrived in white envelopes with red and blue striped borders and stamps of British royalty sat regally on the upper right corner. My name and address written in cursive with European flair sent a message to anyone who touched it that Ann Morgan and I were friends across the ocean.  We wrote through high school and even a little beyond.  We had hoped to meet one day, then somewhere between high school graduation, college, marriage and children we lost touch.

I met my then-future husband while he was on a 30-day leave from the Navy.  We spent every day of the remaining two weeks together and promised to write when he left.  Once again, I kept the mailbox vigil, for the white envelopes with red and blue stripes. We exchanged pictures and I often packed my letters into boxes filled with oatmeal cookies and other treats from home. We spent the next eleven months learning about each other through our letters and became engaged to marry on his next leave.  We planned our wedding through letters during his second tour of duty in Viet Nam, then somewhere between raising children and growing careers we lost touch.

Important people can slip from your grip before you realize they’re gone.  Aging parents, tenuous marriages, blossoming relationships, growing children, long distance relationships all need nurturing. In our new society of instant messaging and social media networking, it is easy to fall into a false sense of communication security.  Nothing takes the place of personal touch. That’s real contact – person to person skin to skin if possible.

A real pat on the back for a job well done
An affectionate hug to a friend in need
A spoken compliment to a child
A follow-up kiss to the “I-Heart-U” text.

I’m all for saving the environment, but nothing takes the place of a hand-written note of thanks, get well wish or expression of condolence.  When was the last time you really reached out and touched someone?

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