Lifelong Pen Pals

At the tender age of 10, I began writing to pen pals, getting names and addresses from letters written in a national magazine for young girls.

My very first pen pal was Janet, who lived in New York while I lived in Pennsylvania. She is exactly six months older than I am, and we have always had a tremendous amount in common from the very beginning.

We have written faithfully now for 60 years!!!!!

I moved to Florida at age 17. She moved to Arizona for awhile and then back to New York. But we never lost touch.

We went through our lives together and shared happiness and heartbreaks as well as telling each other of our hobbies, families, school activities, friends, first boyfriends, marriages, our children born close in age to each other, ironically getting a divorce at the same time (unbeknownst that it was happening to the other until we wrote telling of the event!!), our working lives, my remarrying and her having a long-time boyfriend, the deaths of our husbands, and now what we are doing in our "golden years" (we are each only semi-retired and always trying to keep up with our busy schedules!!).

Many a time we would be writing to each other on the very same day even if we had gone months without having time to write!! It has always been uncanny how our lives have paralleled.

Once we both got computers, our "snail mail" usually became e-mail except for the beautiful "special friend" birthday cards we always have found to send to each other.

Yet in all that time we never met until 50 years had passed and Janet came down to Florida to unbelievably visit a relative close to where I now live!!!

It was like we had had face-to-face conversations on a regular basis all those years, and we chatted non-stop for approximately three hours!!!

Don't ever think that your only friends have to be those you see in person. I have made other long-time pen friends as well and occasionally will get to meet some of them, which just enhances the writing experience.

Today's children and young adults have no idea what all they are missing out on by not sharing letters with other people, no matter what age or gender. I am now encouraging my grand-daughter (age 11) to continue to communicate with me in the midst of her hectic school and activity schedule.

Letter writing is not a lost art to those of us who know and appreciate that joy.