Digest their meaning

It's at times like this,Christmas that we think of others, family and friends across the sea who live a life so very different but in many ways so very similar.
In November we look for Christmas cards. Charity ones, smaller ones for overseas and possibly a more ostentatious one for people we hope to impress. The writing of a sentence or two is soon discounted as the scale of the task draws one to a mumble of Happy and I Hope as the pile is slowly dealt with.
It's funny looking back how different the scene and the circumstance but one thing was paramount, our belief in the postal service to do its job and land our card or letter on the correct doorstep. When one considers the many hands that each piece of mail has to pass through on its journey around the world it's an amazing service. We quibble and complain when things are delayed or go astray often because we have not clearly written an address or mis-copied a post code. 

From the moment you release your grip on the envelope and the sound of it hitting the bottom of the post box the adventure begins but somehow, like the way we used to sentimentally extend our connection with a friend leaving on a ship by holding a long ribbon of material which stretched from the person standing on the quay to the other on the ship it maintained a connection like holding hands. The frisson as the letter left your fingertips was palpable especially if the letter contained some deep endearment.
From the postman emptying the postbox to the local sorting table where it's destination was sealed, out to a rain sodden ships berth and into the security of the hold. Off loaded in blinding sunshine on the other side of the world after a five week voyage the reverse procedure began, town, superb, street and letter box for your precious letter with its even more precious endearments to be read and hopefully enjoyed.
Being at the receiving end of a letter was equally exciting,depending on who it was from of course.
The major cities across the globe had their Central Post Office. Often an impressive building, an oasis from the heat and the bustle of the city outside its doors. Travelling around the world the section that drew your focus was Poste Restante (French for Post Remaining) where you collected letters sent to you.
The queue zigzagging across the marble floor led to a marble counter behind which stood marble figures. Sorry I'm being unfair to those unhurried staff who had a very responsible job to do and which seemed to cover a vast array of quasi legal and administrative business. It was cool in here, why fret, soon you would have the cherished letters in your hand the words of endearment the words of hope and of the future together.
Mr John Wood, off they would go to search under W. How many this time, would there be any, it was a lottery. Sometimes there were stacks and you backed away like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, sated, unable to decide which to open first. The special ones you kept, like a cast-a-way hoarding water, each word each syllable to savour slowly as you tried to digest there meaning !!
Other times there were none and the world crumbled as you read the worst into this absence of reading. Maybe tomorrow, there was always tomorrow and with the optimism of youth you merged into the pedestrians outside who oblivious of your dilemma soon delivered you into today and the importance of the next few hours.