By 
"You've got to stop sending me thank-you notes," my grandma insisted during my junior year of college, sounding equal parts exasperated and apologetic. "You don't have to send me one every time I do something nice for you. I'm your grandmother!"
Her plea was ironic because she was complaining about my doing something that she had insisted on since my childhood: sending a thank-you note any time I received a gift – no matter what, period.
If my grandmother didn't receive my handwritten note of thanks within a week of sending me a gift, I could expect a phone call: "I mailed you something," she'd say expectantly. "Did you get it?"
What she really meant, of course, was, "Are you going to thank me for it?" I was eager to avoid her disappointment, and thus began my lifelong practice of sending thank you notes with quick turnaround.
At age 13, as I opened my gifts one by one in a hotel room in the late night hours that followed my bat mitzvah reception, my grandmother meticulously scribbled down a list of all the gifts I received and who they came from. Per her instruction, I was not permitted to use any of my new things–including the silver Tiffany necklace and engraved pen set, which I was desperate to show off –until I had first sent thank you note to the guests who had given them to me.
I wrote all my bat mitzvah thank you notes within just a few days–and it's a practice I've kept up ever since.
I was so diligent about my thank you notes, in fact, that my dear grandmother, who was fond of sending me a $20 bill once a month or so while I was in college, finally gave me a pass on writing them to her. "I get it," she told me. "You appreciate me, and I appreciate that."
My grandmother passed away years ago, but her insistence on the importance of thank you notes has stuck with me. Now in my thirties, I still hold myself to the bat mitzvah rule: If I receive a gift, I can't use it until I've dropped my thank you note in the mailbox.
I keep a running list in my phone of notes that I need to write, and checks cannot be cashed until their writers have been properly thanked. When I visit out-of-town friends, I carry a small stash of stationery in my bag so I can scribble out my thanks as I travel home.
What began as an annoyance in my childhood has become a bit of a love affair in adulthood. Sending thank you notes reminds me of my own gratitude and serves as an easy opportunity to make someone else feel valued.
It's a small thing, a thank you note, but it carries a big message of appreciation and gratitude. In our technology-centered world, there are much faster ways to express our thanks–a phone call, a text message, an email. Still, there's something old-fashioned and especially heartfelt about writing it down by hand. Receiving a tangible piece of snail mail says to its recipient, "I am thinking about you, and I am thankful for you. Here is the handwritten proof."
My thank you notes are just a small kindness, but I know they're meaningful to those who receive them. Every once in a while, I get a text from a friend who, while doing spring cleaning or going through their possessions before a big move, stumbles across a cache of past thank you notes from me. Even years later, they thank me for thanking them!
Now that my friends are spread out across the country, my thank you note habit has morphed into a bigger love of letter writing. My stationery collection is getting a little bit out of control, but I've also developed a reputation as the friend you can count on to maintain a long-distance friendship with regular letters and cards.
When it comes to the power of a handwritten note, my grandma taught me well–and for, that I am indeed thankful.
