Pen Pals at Eighty and Ten

My mother, who is eighty, signed up for an intergenerational pen pal program through her library. She was matched with a ten-year-old girl named Priyanka who lives across town.

They write every two weeks. My mother uses her good stationery and her fountain pen. Priyanka uses glitter gel pens and stickers. My mother writes about growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, milking cows before school, and the time a calf followed her all the way to the schoolhouse. Priyanka writes about soccer, her little brother's terrible jokes and her dream of being a marine biologist.

They finally met in person at a library picnic in August. Priyanka ran right up and hugged her. My mother, who isn't a hugger, hugged back for a long time.

They've decided to keep writing letters even though they could just call. "Letters are better," Priyanka told me. "You can keep them forever." My mother agrees.