From Me To You... There are things your mother tells you that you nod along to, fully confident she is wrong, only to arrive at fifty and realize she was right about every single one of them. Handwritten cards are on that list.
a handwritten card is one of the last truly personal things we send each other. It takes actual effort. You have to find a card, locate a pen that works, think of something to say, write it legibly, and then physically put it in a mailbox. Nobody does all of that by accident. They did it for you, on purpose. The other point is this - mail these days is mostly bills, takeout menus, junk, and your favorite magazine ;) So when something arrives with your name written by an actual human hand, everything stops. You sit down, read it twice, and then put it on the mantelpiece where it stays for a week as a reminder that somebody was thinking of you. My mother knew all of this, of course. She always did. She was right about the cards, right about the sunscreen, and probably right about that boyfriend in 1987. I should have written that on a card and sent it to her years ago. She would have put it on her mantelpiece. Catherine Uretsky Editor, CB Living Magazine info@estrellapublishing.com 623.398.5541
After my wedding, while my new husband and I were packed and ready to leave for the airport, my mother sat herself down in the armchair by the front door and simply refused to move. She was not leaving, she informed us cheerfully, until every last thank you card was written, addressed, and sealed. Not started. Not mostly done. Finished. She had stamps. She had time. She had her knitting and a cup of tea. She had absolutely no intention of budging. I thought she was being ridiculous. We had a flight to catch and a honeymoon to get to. What possible difference could it make if the cards went out next week? Or the week after? People didn’t really expect them, did they? They did. And more than that, they remembered them. What I didn’t understand then, and what I have only come to appreciate as I’ve become older, is that
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4 Estrella Publishing - CB Living magazine
May 2026
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