If you’re looking for a special way to communicate your love to family or friends, consider bypassing a standard greeting card and instead try writing a simple, original letter from the heart. The Campaign for Love and Forgiveness seeks to revive the art of written communication as a thoughtful practice capable of making a difference to family, friends, and even communities.
The goal is simple: that through writing, whether it’s a short note to recognize a special holiday or occasion, a heart-felt letter, or writings in a private journal, people will experience firsthand the power of love and forgiveness.
San Francisco high school literature teacher, Ellen Greenblatt, put this theory to the test for a Valentine’s Day writing project. In preparation for a family memoir project, she asked her tenth-grade students to submit original letters expressing their love to someone important in their lives.
In this age of technology, where text messaging “i <3 u” is probably more common for teens than picking up pen and paper, the classroom exercise demonstrated the value of committing words to paper. Some students wrote their parents; others chose their grandparents or friends. Yet at the heart of each communication was true emotion—something that is often brushed aside in today’s harried lifestyle.
One student wrote to his father: “We don’t talk a lot. We don’t fill up our time with chatter and gossip. A lot of time we don’t have a lot to say. But, recently, in our mutual silence, I have found more comfort and love than I would have found in a million
words … ”
Another student wrote to his mother, “While you might think that your perpetual acts of kindness go unnoticed, I mean to assure you that they are observed and appreciated with the warmest of hearts. I decided to take some time to display how much I appreciate all of the seemingly small, yet significant acts that you perform on a daily basis … ”
Lilia Fallgatter, author of The Most Important Letter You Will Ever Write believes, “telling someone ‘I love you’ is not enough to communicate what a person truly means to you,” she says. “The best way to communicate your feelings to loved ones is by writing,” she adds. “Good words are worth much and cost so very little. They can even help re-establish or strengthen bonds.”
Samara O’Shea, author of For the Love of Letters: A 21st Century Guide to the Art of Letter Writing says, “I’m an advocate of technological advancements … they are great for speed and creating large communities. A letter, however, establishes an intimacy these other media can’t mimic, and (bonus!) if you write fairly detailed letters, you automatically keep a record of the events in your life.”
