The transforming power of a thank-you note

Revisiting connections sparks newfound appreciation for old friends and lessons learned.

I recently came across a Nov. 22, 2022, Monitor cover story by Harry Bruinius titled “Love and Connection: The transforming power of a thank-you note.” He described a woman who celebrated her 50th birthday by hand-writing a letter once a week for the entire year to people who had helped, shaped, or inspired her. She chose people from varied contexts and time periods in her life. She didn’t expect a reply; she wasn’t soliciting funds for her favorite charity; she had no ax to grind or cause to champion. Telling each of them what they meant to her was the point of the entire exercise.

One morning last December, I finished looking through a box of photographs from the 1950s and 1960s. Here were Martha and Bonnie, my two best friends from Girl Scouts; snapshots of my church group; a picture of me and my pledge sisters dressed up for a goofy sorority initiation. The photographs reinforced a simple fact: I am outliving my friends and relatives. It was time to tell those still living what they meant to me.

After quite a bit of sleuthing and opening a Whitepages account, I had a spreadsheet with 51 names and addresses. I sent my first note on Jan. 1.

I began with this sentence: “I recently celebrated my 77th birthday and started reflecting on people who have been important to me and what I learned from them. I am writing to thank you for ...”

Each week, I look at the name I have selected and revisit the connection we had: the first time we met, a time when we took a risk, a task we worked on, a quirk we have in common, a misunderstanding that turned into admiration, or the moment I accepted a leadership role from a friend who told me I was ready.

Lin was a pixie of a young woman with a deep Midwestern lineage who came to college in 1963, the same year I arrived. Lin and I were twin souls, fond of practical jokes, wearing crazy costumes, flouting the rules, and rolling our eyes at over-serious upperclassmen. When I found her address, nearly 60 years later, I thanked her for her loyalty and her humor.

I thanked Pirun, a luminous, commonsense elder in the Cambodian community, for teaching me about his Theravada Buddhist faith. One day I read in the newspaper that vandals had broken into a temple he helped establish, ripping out wall hangings and statues and writing racist slurs on the walls. I sought out Pirun to express my deep sorrow at the attack and ended up in tears. He never forgot; neither did I.

Cynthia was a woman of strength and vision when I knew her in the 1980s. She took my self-conscious, clumsy stories pulled together from visits to Maine island communities and streamlined the narrative so the people and the settings vibrated with authenticity. I thanked her for inspiring me.

None of the 46 notes I’ve written so far have been “returned to sender.” I received 14 responses in which old friends shared their memories of times we spent together. Susan wrote, “Your lovely card and note arrived on a day when I was feeling particularly dispirited about work, and you reminded me of the opportunity for joyful collaboration it can offer if I look for it.”

At my age, memories are rusty things. But I have been surprised, transformed perhaps, by the memories that surface each time I begin a note. The discipline of naming one or two things I learned is like turning a key in an old lock. Out come lessons on curiosity, the joy of teaching, learning to listen, and the power of stories. Giving my attention each week to a friend, colleague, or mentor, or teacher from my past reminds me that aptitudes I now take for granted exist because of our relationship. 

So, for the rest of this year, I’ll pay it forward one note at a time.

The Monitor's Clayton Collins, Director of Editorial Innovation, recently spoke with Harry Bruinius about the gratitude cover story which inspired this essay and how it impacted his own life and outlook. You can listen to that conversation here: "Light in the darkness: The transformative power of giving thanks."