Communication

I was recently brought up short by a letter and gift that was received from my grandmother.

My dad and stepmum brought over a package (for our son, of course) and accompanying letter they had received on our behalf from my son's great grandmother.  She has yet to see him as she lives out East in Ontario.

In this letter she said how the quilt and pillow that she saw (for such was the aforementioned gift) just leapt out at her when perusing her church bazaar and she had to snap them up for Declan.  She also mentioned that she was a little hurt at not having received any pictures of her great grandson directly from his parents yet.  This is what brought me up a little short.  She has since been sent a thank you card for the gift along with pictures of my son opening the box.

But really, what this made me think of is how it hardly even occurs to me to instigate any sort of communication on paper these days.  I'd say that 90% of my non face-to-face communication is via Email and the bulk of the remainder is on the phone.  Write a letter?!  That's almost anathema to me these days.  Which, thinking about it, is rather unfortunate.  And obviously completely excludes those individuals in my life like grandmothers.

I am really good at keeping up with electronic communication.  To which this web log is testament.  Not as good with the telephone, and much less so with the written word.  In using new mediums, a part of me has been wilfullly ignorant of the fact that many folk do not keep up to the same degree.  No Email address?  Sorry then, can't be bothered to keep in touch.  (It's not quite that bad, but not as far off the mark as I'd like either.)

So I am making a new commitment (NOT a new year's resolution) to keep in more regular contact with my grandmothers in Ontario.  My grandmother here in Edmonton too, while I'm at it.  (My stepdad's mum.)  Because, you know, I want to stay in the wills and all that...