Dorothy Wilhelm: Somehow, a handwritten letter feels more personal

When the rear view mirror fell off of my car, I took it as a sign that I shouldn’t look backward so much (and also perhaps that I should look around for another car).

But when I turned on my computer this morning and learned that I had a message from Jesus waiting on Facebook, I didn’t know what to think.

I quickly reviewed my recent history but, except for failing to offer up some soup for the church supper, I could discover nothing that I’d done that was good enough or bad enough to require such personal attention. “Jesus writes,” the announcement said, “I’ve got to get an Amazon account.” I’m familiar with celebrity endorsements, but this is ridiculous.

It turned out not to be that Jesus. It was a request by a gentleman named Jesus Garcia for information about the best way to order a book written by a mutual friend. I don’t know this Jesus. I barely know the mutual friend. Who needs all these strangers? But I don’t dare quit Facebook. I’d never know what my kids are doing.

I decided to retaliate by logging off and moving a few things around in the garage, which is what I do in times of dejection. The boxes make a nice noise when they hit the wall. This time I discovered a real treasure. Crumpled against the back of a drawer, I found two letters, apparently never mailed, written by my father nearly 18 years ago. One letter was for me and one was for my youngest son, his grandson, on the occasion of that young man’s wedding.

Dad wrote of how Patrick, as a little boy, insisted on hearing only “polite and fair” versions of fairy tales. The Three Little Pigs must not be too scared and no houses could be blown down. Most of all, the Big Bad Wolf could not fall into scalding water. Instead, he backed into cold water and was so astonished, he ran home to change clothes. Dad wrote, “We could not hurt big, tough King Kong” who wasn’t allowed to fall off the building, “but had to climb down and swim home.”

I’d forgotten all that, but now – through my father who’s been gone from us for 14 years – I could see him sitting in his big leather chair making alarming animal sounds, as the children climbed over him. You won’t get that in an e-mail.

Dad was so ashamed that he had only a fifth-grade education that he rarely wrote more than short notes, but this was important enough that he filled 15 tablet pages in labored block print.

It’s true that no one writes letters anymore, but it’s not a new complaint.

My son, Chris, who loves Latin, proved it with this translation from 110 A.D., for goodness sake, when Pliny the Younger wrote to a dear friend: “I am severely angry because for such a long time there’ve been no letters from you,” he began. “I don’t want to hear ‘But I wasn’t in Rome’ or ‘I was pretty busy.’ And may the gods certainly not allow ‘I wasn’t feeling too well.’ ” He ended with a request for very many, very long letters. I wonder what Pliny would have made of Facebook.

This is a good day to write a letter to someone special. Even if they find it 20 years from now, the memories will flood their hearts as the scent of wildflowers on the banks of the Kootenai River filled my memory when I read Dad’s letter.

Memories keep coming. Last week my oldest son was playing “Star Wars” with his grandson, my first great-grandson.

They had two Darth Vader action figures. One wore the iconic black helmet and accessories and the other was scarred, scuffed and had lost his helmet. Two Darth Vaders?

“Yes,” my son explained. “This is Darth Vader, and this is his less successful twin brother, Darrell.”

I could put that story in a letter – or post it on Facebook.

Right now, I’m driving some soup over to the church supper. I’m taking no chances and I’ll be OK as long as I don’t back up.

Dorothy Wilhelm can be reached by e-mail at Dorothy@itsnevertoolate.com. Dorothy’s new streaming radio show “InThe Middle” with Bob Pittman starts March 19 at 3 p.m. on the CSJ Network (www,CSJ.com.)