I’d like to address communicating, and how we communicate! My family exchanges cards on Mother’s Day. I have 2 children, 2 children-in-law, and 5 grandchildren. I received many wonderful cards from them. Several were totally homemade (from grandchildren), the others store-bought, but all had hand-written card messages to me about our meaningful relationships. They described what I meant to the writer as a mom, mother-in-law or “Grammy”. I’ll cherish each of those wonderful handwritten greeting card and messages. They were all very personal and conveyed messages of great love.

I don’t think anything, whether it’s a text message or an email, can ever replace a hand-written message on a card, whether it’s a thank you card, a sympathy note, or a congratulatory card for a birthday or anniversary.

One teacher of a writing course I once took said there’s a special connection between the hand and the heart. So that when you write something special to someone you care about, it somehow makes a connection with your heart. I’ve never forgotten that.

The card companies do a fine job with card decorations but the messaging inside simply doesn’t do it for me. It’s much better if the sender adds more to the card’s message than “Love.” I know that takes work, and thought, but handwritten messages that convey something special about your relationship to the recipient is what makes those cards magical and wonderful.

There is a whole other reason why it is nice to write messages by hand, and that reason benefits the writer, and not as discussed above, the recipient.  Scientific studies appear to correlate handwriting, as opposed to typing, with beneficial brain activity. As described in this article in “Science News,” writing by hand stimulates brain connectivity, especially related to sections of the brain that regulate memory and learning. 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/handwriting-brain-connections-learning

So, while it’s true, as the article indicates, that typing is “often easier, faster and more practical,” the act of handwriting a card message not only benefits the brain of the writer but conveys to the recipient a very personal relationship statement that no text or email can ever come close to capturing.