Letters from her grandmother brought them even closer together

Morning North3:10New feature - Letters of Note

We are launching a new weekly series here on Morning North. It is called "Letters of Note". It's about the stories behind those letters that people just can't part with. This is just a taste of what you'll hear.

When Janet Young was 22, she left her her Cape Breton home of Reserve Mines to spend a summer working in Killarney, Ont. It was 1990, the maritime economy was stagnating, and she needed to find work.

Although she was relieved to escape some turmoil between her parents at home, the distance proved difficult for Young. She was very close to her grandmother, and as a child even tagged along to bingo halls to be by her side. She described herself as her grandmother's "shadow."

"It's hard to be away when big things are happening," Young said, "when people are having babies or graduating or getting married."

• Royal BC Museum launches program to encourage handwritten letters

But the distance allowed Young to forge a special bond with her grandmother— who was still back in Cape Breton—through letters.     

"I was very homesick. It would take two weeks to get a letter sometimes and those letters, you know, I'd get them and I'd just cry," Young said.

Young saved some of those letters and still reads them from time to time. They are important to her, simply because they represent a place to which she can always return.

"Her letters are not very legible but I can certainly make them out because I've read them over and over."

So why would someone keep twenty-year-old correspondence? Why place such sentimental importance on letters from the past?

"Sometimes we don't get the chance to tell people what they mean to us," Young said, "and you don't know the effect you are having on someone else necessarily at the time."

Morning North5:35Letters of Note - Janet Young and her grandmother

We launch of new series Letters of Note... featuring the stories behind those letters people just can't part with. We start with correspondence between Janet Young and her grandmother Agnes Young, who played a very special role in Janet's upbringing.

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If you have some letters you've kept and would like to share your story you can contact producer Jan Lakes at jan.lakes@cbc.ca