About forty years ago, a then-young man who published a literary magazine put me in touch with three other then-young women whose poetry and creative fiction he also published. We four women found much in common with one another, and a fervent and enthusiastic letter-friendship developed between us. They lived in various places in the United States; Massachusetts and California, and I in Canada.

We shared, through our long-term and voluminous writing career informing one another of our successes and hopes, information about our respective families. As our children grew and matured we discussed that, just as we discussed what we were each engrossed in writing about, and the publishing successes each of us met with.

Since that long-ago time, one of the women dropped out of our mutual correspondence, another died ten years ago of natural causes due to poor health, and there remains two; myself and another, still living in California. Now, we are able to correspond through the Internet via email, sending one another laconic messages.

But she still maintains a list of friends to whom she annually sends a Christmas message tucked into a jolly Christmas greeting card, where she updates others in more detail on what has been occurring in her life. I received one of those annual communications this week and in it she informs that her grandchildren, a young woman and young man are preparing to launch themselves into university studies for law and medicine, respectively.

And that she has just completed preparing a manuscript to be published, the second in as many years; last year's was a historical novel, this year it is a collection of short stories and a novella. She is self-publishing, but publishing. I too have been self-publishing, but not in hard-copy form; rather, in a series of blogs, one of which is devoted to my creative literary muse.

She writes of a difficult year, with many health problems erupting, "but nothing life-threatening", for herself, while her husband "has been at death's door a number of times...He is in real bad shape now". But while it sounds dire, it is typical of her; any letters received over the years have been replete with hard-luck health-and-accident stories that have occurred either to herself or family members - or distant acquaintances. Vintage.

The final sentence in her missive was an enquiry about how everything is proceeding in my family.
Prompting me to respond. By mail. With a reciprocal jolly Christmas card. And chirping message of advanced-age-related health problems.