Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been refreshing my email, hoping to see one from my Grandma. For as long as I’ve had my email, since fifth or sixth grade, I have had weekly correspondence with my grandmother. Before email, and sometimes after, I would spend my time writing letters. I would painstakingly choose the prettiest card to fill the pages with details of my life. Pestering my mother for the address I could never remember, I would then find a stamp and my mail my heart to my grandma, in form of a letter. Now, as most of my time is taken up by writing essays and lab reports for schools, we communicate through electronic words. As the years have passed by, I can expect a few things from my grandma’s emails. I’m always greeted by a cute subject header and an even cuter electronic stationery. When I read my grandmother’s emails, I smile when she writes about her life in New York and all the different plays she sees and all the different strangers she talks to. I smile because I know my Grandma has a more busy and interesting life than my own. As we rarely talk on the phone, emails with my grandmother have become a staple in communicating our lives. While there are billions of people who use email, I always see the emails between myself and my grandma as something uniquely lovely and special. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been missing the emails from my grandmother. Unfortunate circumstances have kept my Grandma from her email, yet I would keep refreshing hoping to see an email from her. Hoping to see a sign that she was back to her normal self. This morning my refreshing yielded a result as I was greeted with cheery pink stationery ending with the words “Love you, G’ma.” There is nothing better than a warm hug, but when distance makes a warm hug in person impossible, an email or a letter sends that warm hug through its written words. By Maria White