"Tea with the Queen" by Kay Harper Windsor

 – spirited curiosity and spunk

“What’s the Queen of England’s whole name?”

Kay Harper Windsor leads reflective writing sessions for Trellis Supportive Care in Winston-Salem and for community groups. She served as a national mentor for journalism teachers after four decades of teaching. For 20 years, she has been part of the Farther Along writing group, and her writing is included in Farther Along: The Writing Journey of Thirteen Bereaved Mothers and at fartheralongbook.com. 

Kay is a mother of three children and a grandmother of seven grandchildren, all storytellers. Writing friend and story catcher Susan encouraged Kay to share this story.

Author’s Talk

Kay Harper Windsor

Letters have been a lifeline since I was in third grade and became my grandmother’s secretary, writing letters in my new cursive handwriting to the one of her twelve children who lived outside of North Carolina. She trusted me to transcribe her words sent to relatives and to Presidents of the United States (at least two of them). While she rolled out dough for pie crusts and peeled fresh apples or peaches, she dictated grocery lists and had me sign my high school aged cousin’s report cards.  

When I was 11, a teacher suggested that because I liked writing, a pen pal might help me to become less shy. I wrote to all 43 persons who responded to my listing in the hobby column of my Sunday School quarterly. For years. I met one of them in person and continued writing letters until I was in my twenties. 

Opening my first email account in the ‘80s, I again found connections. Like Emily Dickinson who lowered notes to friends from her window, I could send those notes—by email, not lowered basket—to friends at any time of day or night. I no longer had to leave notes with pennies in my rural mailbox asking for stamps (Mr. Ward, please leave me two three-cent stamps. Love, Kay). I still love writing letters (and some would say, long emails).  

When my three children were young, we lived in a rural area, “30 minutes from everywhere” I sometimes explained. So when they wanted to ask a question of someone, we were more likely to write letters together than telephone (long distance was still considered a “luxury”). When one child’s favorite comic strip was removed from the newspaper, that one wrote a letter of protest to the editor and included a picture of an anaconda (for emphasis, not threat). When a child was putting together an expansive Lego building and found one piece missing, that one wrote/drew a letter to show which piece was needed and received that one piece and a letter of apology in the mail. So when my daughter wanted to write the Queen of England or the author of The Babysitters Club books, it was not such an unusual occurrence. 

And when my friend Katherine reminded me of the letter more than 25 years later, I remembered the letters and the stories they told—even those between the lines.—Kay Harper Windsor