The Address Book

Many years ago, my sister-in-law gave me an address book that has a picture of a mailbox on the front and says “Friendships are kept by keeping in touch.” I believe that, I correspond still with high school classmates and people I worked with decades ago. Sometimes only once or twice a year, but still keeping in touch. I’ve added pages and now the book is stuffed with loose papers, envelopes and sticky notes.

Over the years, some friends and family have only had one address, others have overflowed to new pages. Sadly, some have a thin pencil line through their entry with a date written on it. They no longer have an address to receive mail at, they only live in my heart.

The one constant about staying in touch is people keep moving and leaving and there is always something to update in my address book. This month is no exception. Our niece and her family moved to their third new page as they left the great Midwest for the heart of Dixie. A high school friend never came home after heart surgery, but left my name and number with her sister just in case. And a dear friend and her husband decided on the spur of the moment to return home to Louisiana where they would be in the midst of family. They are people of action and I barely had time to have their going away party and they were gone. I am happy for them, especially for their little grandson who is over the moon excited that they will be near by. I am a little sad for me that I can’t run by to pick her up for lunch anymore.

Several years ago when the local Hallmark shop went out of business, I bought a new address book intending to transfer all the current information to it, but I never have. I think it is because the historian in me loves to look back through my cluttered book and relive the history I have had with the friends and family I love. If I ever get around to transferring information to the new book, I will be keeping the old book, too. I just can’t walk away from all that history.