A Little Old-Fashioned Kindness

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough."
― Meister Eckart

It may have been the black-and-white episodes of Leave it to Beaver I watched last night that reminded me of the kindness of the old-fashioned handwritten thank you note. 

While it may seem odd to some, I enjoy handwriting thank you notes.  I have always had a fondness for paper and pens.  I don't write notes as often as I mean to ...  In fact, every new year, one of my few resolutions is to write one note per day.  While that doesn't happen regularly, it makes me happy to go to the post office to mail handwritten notes. 

Especially in this day of instant communication thanks to e-mail and social media, there is something wonderful about the handwritten note.  It takes a little more time than sending a quick e-mail, but I always figure that my writing a note takes significantly less time than it took the person I am thanking to do whatever she did for me.  Using this rationale, I have tried to instill this practice in my children, although my efforts have not been entirely successful.

A few years ago when my uncle died, a friend sent a condolence card.  I sent her a note thanking her for her thoughtfulness and she was surprised.  But I was so touched.  I knew that it had been an effort for this busy mother and attorney to buy the card, write it, find a stamp and get it in the mail.

Leah Dieterich, an LA-based writer and filmmaker, wrote a book titled thx thx thx Thank Goodness for Everything, which is a collection of her handwritten thank you notes.  In her book, she thanks everything from words for letting her make art to the "th" sound for "making Spanish so sweet and vulnerable sounding."

Sadly, 67 percent of adults think that the thank you note has died out, according to a British study done this year.  Apparently, handwriting thank you notes is closely followed by using a dictionary and going to the library as top disappearing activities, thanks to technology.  According to the US Postal Service, the average home received a personal letter only once every seven weeks in 2010, down from once every two weeks in 1987.

But for me, there is something special about this old-fashioned kindness and I will continue to champion its cause.  Maybe it has the allure of June Cleaver in her dresses and pearls.