Passing A Gift On

When I was seven years old, an aunt gave me a gift that has shaped my life. I still have pictures and memories from that day when I opened it.

This gift was a pen-pal kit.

At the time, my aunt lived in Colorado. She's my mom's oldest friend and she proposed that we write each other letters. I clearly responded with enthusiasm, because we wrote off and on for about ten years. I still have all her letters.

Within that time, I tried having pen pals through a magazine I received. Neither lasted all that long, but it was fun getting letters and getting to know another girl my age.

Then my friends and I were graduating from high school. Some of us went away and I thought, "they need a connection to home". So I started writing them. I wrote a different friend once a month; one girl I wrote every week. At one point, I have five different people I wrote letters to. Hardly anyone wrote me back, and those that did were very far apart. So why did I write so faithfully?

For one thing, I'm a writer. I think and express myself best in writing. I also love getting mail and I'm certainly not going to get a letter if I don't write first. This way, I always have a chance at someone writing me back. But the driving force was, these girls were far from home. They didn't really know anyone. I wanted them to know that there was someone who would always be there. I was one of the few who didn't go away and I guess I viewed myself as a tether of sorts. No matter where they were, there was someone back home thinking and caring about them.

It's quite possible that I was over-inflating my importance, but I know what I would have liked if I were in their shoes, so I wrote. I know it meant something to them; still does. So I keep writing.

All this started with a pen-pal kit.

Now, my cousin is turning eight and I am giving her a pen-pal kit. I hope I can be an influence to her as my aunt was to me. I hope I can spark something in her that has the potential to impact her life as greatly as it has mine. I don't know. But hopefully we'll both have fun and grow closer.

Are you a letter writer? It's kind of dying out, but there are some. How do you feel when someone sends you something sweet in the mail?

Create Your Own Pen-Pal Kit

• fun paper
  
• envelopes
  
• pens
  
• stamps
  
• stickers (optional)
  
• address labels (optional)
  
• storage lap board like this (optional)