Mim was all of 15 when she first became a foreign correspondent. She spotted a tiny ad in a magazine promoting international friendships - a pen pal exchange. She signed up & was paired with a pen pal way down in Australia. I don't know where Sue lived when she & Mim started writing, where she trained to be a nurse, but I know that she ended up in the countryside, on a sheep station with her husband. She's been married to Robert Bennett for so long - we're talking a correspondence that started going on 60 years ago - I only remember her married name!
It was wonderful to experience kindred spirits connecting via writing paper & stamps! She & Sue never met, but they were the best of friends*. Sue's kids referred to Mim as their American aunt.
Mim, like Sue, had the gift of writing a great letter - part news, part commentary, all great storytelling. Their letters formed links that stretched across oceans, islands & continents, forever linking two kindred spirits who would never have connected if it hadn't been for that tiny ad in a long forgotten magazine.
All of us got excited when a letter, card or package arrived from Sue. Through her letters, we experienced her going to nursing school, getting married, having children, working their sheep station. We learned that if you have an accident on a sheep station like theirs, it was a 60 mile drive to the nearest medical facility - and they considered that close. That a Christmas card featuring a burning meadow wasn't as bizarre as we thought - it symbolized rebirth. That Australian tea towels are stunning, informative & great for drying glassware.
Mim was blessed with Mom's great gift for letter writing, which seemed to just flow out of them. Mim came of age at the end of the eons-long letter writing era, hundreds of years when writing letters was commonplace.
In writing this, am realizing how important that gift & grace would be to both Mim & Mom, as they became more place-bound. Letters arrived & transported them to the place & presence of their correspondent.
Receiving a hand-written letter became a ritual in our family. We'd draw them out of the mail box, spot distinctive handwriting & the return address, take them into the house & set them aside as we poured a cup of coffee or made a cup of tea, settled into a comfy chair or didn't even wait - opening the letter right by the kitchen counter. Perhaps we shared it with others or tucked it safely away. And when we responded, that person - perhaps others around them - would be in our minds, thought bringing an almost tangible form of presence. Letter writing - pen & paper, envelopes & stamps, photos tucked in for fridge honors - an almost forgotten custom we'd be wise to revive!
I have become a flabby letter writer - may this be a spur to getting better & better! One thing I know for sure - all the Lockharts were blessed that Mim was, from an early age, a foreign correspondent!
* My brother, Mike, is the only Lockhart to actually meet Sue & her family. On Mim's behalf, he visited their sheep station.
No comments:
Post a Comment