The Value of a Handwritten Thank You Note

When was the last time you opened your mailbox, only to find an honest to goodness, handwritten thank you note? You know, the kind that isn’t pre-printed with your name and address. It doesn’t have a “bulk mail” stamp on it. It’s the real deal…It has a handwritten address, and a real stamp. How long has it been? For me, just last week. It was one of the best thank you notes I had ever received. Very personal, direct and from the heart. So what if the handwriting was a tad difficult to read and there were a few misspelled words. It came from a 7 year old. And it grabbed my heart.

It wasn’t fancy. In fact, I can picture him walking to the family printer, pulling out a piece of white paper, grabbing a pencil from the stash in the living room table drawer, and after a pause or two, and maybe even chewing on the eraser, writing the words that came from his heart:

Noah’s thank you note

“Thank you so much for donatin to jump roap for heart Ant Mona”

(insert big smiley face here)

Noah

I’ve thought about that handwritten thank you note about a gazillion (or more) times in the last week. Mainly because I have been extremely lax in writing thank you notes to the people who cross my path.

I value them, I appreciate them, I thank them, and I think of them often, but they don’t know that.

They don’t know that I have a stack of a few dozen blank thank you cards sitting on my counter in my kitchen. Right next to the pens, and believe it or not, the stamps. I HAVE EVERYTHING I NEED TO WRITE A HANDWRITTEN THANK YOU NOTE. But I haven’t done it in months. As I sit at the library writing this blog post, I’m almost giddy to go home, grab my favorite Sharpie fine point pens and start writing. You never know…maybe you’re on my list. Watch your mailbox. By the way, thanks for the lesson Noah. I love you.