I have always wished I could go back in time and know my grandparents when they were young. I want to know them as a 30 something conversing with another 30 something. Maybe I could be a next door neighbor who walks over for tea or coffee in the afternoon while the kids play outside. It would be fabulous.

All of my grandparents are deceased expect for my Grandmother June. I don’t call her grandmother, I call her Mamaw. It makes me laugh just to type Mamaw. I grew up in East Tennessee and like most good Southern Girls I use the proper terms of endearment. Mamaw and Papaw. Anyhow, I live far away from my last living grandparent and I hate how I am missing the last few years I will be able to know her as a person. She is 84 and still very much alive. I see her when we visit but those times are few and far between.

Mamaw does not email, or Facebook, or participate in any other form of modern communication. She does write letters. Last year I began writing my grandmother about ordinary life. What we did last weekend, the weather, and any other mundane thing I thought she would find interesting. She writes me back to tell me about family, the weather, her church, things to pray for, and about my Great Uncle Harry. I so love opening my mailbox and seeing her penmanship on an envelope. I am sure it is difficult for her to write with her arthritis, but she always replies to my letters. While I would prefer to sit with her, I am grateful I will always have these letters long after she is gone.