What if I hate my handwriting?

How many times have I heard my customers and friends tell me that they don’t like to journal in their albums because they don’t like their handwriting. Typing is easier and more legible and faster! I can sympathize with that. My handwriting is ok, but it’s nothing to write home about. But I got to thinking the other day about handwritten communication and how we are losing it to emails and texts and Twitter and all the other types of non-written communication. But it is so important!

Here are two examples for you. The first is from my best friend, Paula. She has the most beautiful handwriting! So much prettier than mine. But the best part about it is that it is distinctively “her”. When an envelope arrives in the mail bearing that distinctive handwriting, I know that it is from her and that the contents will bless me. Just pulling the envelope out of the mailbox makes me happy once I see the handwriting!

Second example – my mom. Her handwriting wasn’t as pretty as Paula’s, but again, it was distinctively “her”.  When I was a kid, I did a pretty good imitation of her signature. Oops, did I just admit that to the internet?

My mother was a great letter-writer. When she was a young bride, she moved with my father from Boston to Connecticut, and wrote letters weekly to her mother and his mother, to let them know how and what they were doing. Oh, how I wish I had those letters today! When my dad was overseas in WWII, she wrote to him every day and mailed the letters weekly. He wrote to her once. And it contained a brief note saying that they were told to send home their Last Will and Testament. Amazingly, after he got home safely, he lived to tell the story! When I was in college, my mom and I wrote letters to each other. After she died, I found a shoe box in her home with all those letters from me in it. She had saved them all.

So, did my mom care that my handwriting wasn’t perfect? Do I care that hers wasn’t, either? Do my kids mind that mine isn’t as pretty as Paula’s? No and no and no! And probably none of the people in your lives care that yours isn’t perfect, either. So tell the stories, write the info, get it down on paper (in a scrapbook album, preferably!) and help keep the memories alive. If we don’t do that, the stories may very well die with us, and our families deserve to have their stories remembered.  If typing is easier for you (as it is for most of us), I have nothing against typing the stories – but include some of your handwriting in there somewhere! And if you are doing only digital albums, at some point add in a photo of your handwriting, just so it lives on.

Until next time,