Write an actual letter
A letter can be reread, shown to visitors and kept on the mantelpiece. A text cannot do any of those things.
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The BeingKind editorsPublished How this is written
Why it lands
For someone living alone, post is one of the few events in a day, and a real letter is an object rather than a notification. It gets reread, which means one afternoon of your effort gets consumed many times. It also survives: people in care homes and hospital wards routinely have a letter in the drawer that has been read fifty times, which no message thread has ever managed.
How
Write about ordinary specifics — what the garden is doing, something a child said — rather than how you hope they are well. Handwrite it if you can; if your writing is poor, type it in a large font. Include a photograph, which is the part that gets shown to everyone.
Answer if you want. It changes which ideas are shown first.
What happened when someone did it
Wrote a letter to my friend cherishing our friendship
Raj, Seattle
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