Letters
How I wish I saved all my letters. Especially during my childhood when I started jotting down notes my mother would send to my father abroad. When my father retired from his overseas work he brought all the letters he received from everyone back home. Unfortunately, everything was lost when we moved out of Manila, save some notes at the back of old photographs.
Now that everything is digital and on line I wonder how the future generation would react when they find out that there was once a time when letters were handwritten and delivered by mail. They would probably laugh at it being so darn tech uncool like our generation do when we hear people reading filipino hispano poetry.
There’s no denying the fact that technology has helped us enormously. I use e-mail a lot, at work and at home, I rarely write letters these days and when I do write using an old fountain pen, I do for nostalgic reasons.
There’s something about hand writing exactly what you think and feel on a sheet of paper, putting it on an envelope, sealing it with your “laway” and dropping it off at the post office. This, sadly, would be all obsolete in a tech powered future where even a signature is digitalized!
I was able to keep a lot of letters from relatives and friends locally and abroad (sentimental ako sa ganyan). I use to have a letter from Pope John Paul II (well at least a Christmas greeting from Vatican sent to my parents). I used to exchange correspondences with some senators at time of Estrada courtroom drama and EDSA II. It was a time when I was doing my thesis regarding the role of the Catholic Church and EDSA. I refuse to use email with the thought na baka di mapansin so I sent it via next day LBC delivery… Read more »
Even those who lived in the ‘era’ of paper and pen eventually lost their interest in keeping handwritten letters or documents. I used to find letters from or for some of my relatives lodged under the folded clothes in the cabinet. Some amongst the plates and glasses reserved for special occasions! I collected them, thus making myself a self-appointed letter custodian in the house. Perhaps what the modern forms of communication fail to maintain is eloquence (for lack of a better term). I can still remember reading a handwritten letter where one of my relatives was reassuring my grandmother that… Read more »
@ TOF – That’s sad. Sayang. Those papers would have been great reference materials. Thats an interesting subject you took up.
@ Pransis – I’m trying my best to recover what I can. Madami nawala ngayon ko lang din naiisip kung gaano kahalaga lahat ng mga lumang sulat.