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.
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.
Related
Ask again the person who always says no
People who decline every invitation are usually not uninterested. Often they are waiting to be asked a fourth time.
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Read the form out loud for someone
Around one in six adults reads below the level most official forms are written at.
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Return the thing you have had for two years
Everybody is holding something borrowed and mildly embarrassing. Giving it back is easier than the story you have built around it.
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Be the person who holds a spare key
Almost nobody has a local key-holder any more, which turns a lost key into a locksmith call and a few hundred pounds.
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Hand in the thing you found, properly
A dropped wallet or phone handed to the right place is the difference between a bad afternoon and a ruined month.
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