Ten Years of Letter Writing. "If you get a blog one day, I'll be your number one fan."

It takes hours and hours to write so many letters, and Sophie wrote me eighty. If we did some math, we could calculate how many hours she spent writing them. Eighty letters, averaging two and a half pages, twenty minutes per page (roughly), equals 4000 minutes, or seventy hours, or three days straight (a bit rounded). Considering Sophie did everything much faster than I did, it may have been less, or if you just take eighty and say that each letter took an average of two hours, it would be 160 hours.

Her first letters had more hand-drawn pictures and stickers than words. She would draw me sketches to colour in. Before we were ten, after several weeks, one of us would say, "I haven't written a letter to her in a while, I guess I aught to send one about now." But by the time we were eleven, we went back and forth replying directly to the letter just received; sometimes every two weeks a letter would be sent, other times (most often during the summer) it would only come after several months. When we were thirteen, we were standing against the wall at our grandparent's house. She asked if I had gotten her letter. I replied, "No." She said, "It is FIVE PAGES!" I was like, "What! How ever did you have so many things to say?" She answered, "I don't know! I just started writing, and there were five pages!" After that we wrote up to ten pages, but in the last few years, settled pretty consistently into three pages.

For my speech at the funeral I took snippets from her letters ranging from cute comments when she was little, transitioning to thoughts about our letter writing, the future, funerals and heaven. There were many other great bits that I could not all fit in that I wish to share with you. Enjoy!

2014: [About her broken ankle] My foot is doing great! Today my older sister is a camper at Roseau River. I feel sorry for Acacia. She is going to be helping me this whole week!

2015: Dear Avril, it is awesome to get your letters. It is like getting a gift. So you like sour cream now, huh? That’s good! I told my older sister that and she said, “You guys write letters like that? I haven’t written a letter like that in years!”

2016: You know, I have never thought about myself as normal. I guess everyone has their own version of normal. Have I ever written you a “normal” letter?

Yeah, I’d say that we can never learn half the things about God in this lifetime; He’s so big and marvellous and wonderful. But we learn more about Him each day (or should be!).

2017: Do you think Oma and Opa are going to build a new house soon? I hope not….I shouldn’t complain, though, so I’m going to look for the positive things in it. 1. They must be doing it for a good reason. 2. Opa might not need to work on the farm anymore. 3. I don’t know. Oh well. Say happy belated sixteenth birthday to your big sister, oh wait, I keep forgetting she’s in Saskatchewan. My older sister just told me she’s in Ontario. I can’t keep track. But then I just need to read her emails. I’m behind. I’m sitting here listening to my third little sister do addition. “Eighty plus eighty is a million, a million plus a million is one hundred million, one hundred plus one hundred is ninety-twelve, forty-eight plus forty-eight is ninety-eight, ninety-eight plus five is six…” you get the picture.

2018: If you want me to write bigger, I can. I’ve never thought about it being a bit hard to read. I guess I just thought that the smaller the better, in this case. Hey, and if I write bigger, I fill up pages faster! ;)…I’m not a good writer, and you’re not a less good one (you express things much better than me) and your letter was not at all confusing or short. It was JUST RIGHT.

I’d like to see Dietrich Bonhoeffer in heaven someday....

P.S. I’d like to see Adolf Hitler in heaven (though I don’t know if he’s there) and Isaak and Maria Goertzen [our great-grandparents].

I want to see Corrie, Betsie and their father, Casper ten Boom in heaven someday...

P.S. If you get a blog someday, I’ll be your number one fan. God bless you!

2019: I don’t want us to grow up. I guess I’m a little afraid that when we’re older nothing will be quite so enjoyable again. I’m really having a generally great time at this age. It seems that when you’re older you have to be more responsible and make actual decisions. Frankly, thinking about the future kind of scares me. So I often just don’t think about it, which doesn’t seem smart. It’ll come whether I think about it or not. Lately I’ve found myself worrying about not being able to drive and getting a job. I mean, when did I get so old? It surprises me. I’m so glad though, that instead of worrying I can pray.

Once again, the future is uncertain, but wouldn’t it be cool if we wrote when we are seventy?... I’m literally writing this while walking out the door. “Hurry up littlest sister!” I think I have to stop now because my pen is dying. So in my next letter I’ll finish up better. I forgot the envelope! Oh no! Love Sophie

Sometimes I sympathize with seniors who are forgotten like I was their age and my descendants did not find any interest in their history. Although I’m only fifteen. Thinking about being a lonely eighty-year-old is an awfully depressing thought. Oh well, I plan on being a wonderfully lively eighty-year-old. No, I try not to dwell on the future too much.

In heaven, I will see if I can invent a new colour. :)

It’s strange, once someone is actually gone out of your life, you kind of think about them more. You remember more about them. Because if they’re alive and carrying on their day to day lives, you can just wonder what they’re doing today, and see them from time to time.

2020: Often I tell people that I’m excited to be a grandma, (and I am!) but they never realise why. I’m trying awfully hard to live in the moment, but when I’m sixty or seventy, all the things that filled my mind as a sixteen year old will more than likely be resolved. So yeah, I’m excited to be a grandma.

The years coming up excite me, there’s just so much possibility. Like there’s honestly so much possibility. I’m obviously excited for getting married, but there’s so much beyond that too! I’ve got slightly high hopes for me in my twenties, although I’m not very ambitious, say career-wise.

Her classic signature.