They traded letters for 30 years. Time couldn't tear these pen pals apart
In September 1994, 14-year-old Leslie Woodford received a letter that would spark a friendship spanning the next 30 years.
The letter came from a teenager half a world away: Miyuki Shogomori, a student in Japan writing letters to Newfoundlanders as part of a social studies project.
Most pen pals lose touch as they grow up. But not these two.
They kept writing to each other for the next three decades — and decided this summer to finally meet in person.
"It was unreal," Woodford said, describing a moment nearly out of a movie, when the two women ran across a Kyoto hotel lobby to embrace.
Woodford says she was flooded with emotion finally seeing such a dear friend in the flesh, standing beside the family she'd raised during the time the two had known each other.
"It wasn't awkward at all," Woodford recalled. "It's like I knew her forever, like we were living in the same country for 30 years."
Woodford says the two had a special connection from the first letters they ever traded. (Submitted by Leslie Woodford)
While their written exchanges waned while the two were in college, Japan's deadly 2011 tsunami renewed the friendship. "I wrote letters and letters just to make sure she was OK," she said.
Finally, Woodford's mother called. A return letter from Shogomori had arrived in the mail.
"All the relief just [flooded] my body," she said.
The pair picked up where they left off, keeping the connection alive — except this time, their children started writing to each other, too. "We kind of passed along the torch," she said.
Woodford and Shogomori — along with their children — toured Kyoto together this summer when Woodford chaperoned her daughter on a choir trip. Shogomori and her family took a three-hour bullet train to make sure they could meet.
The pair spent three days touring Kyoto this summer. (Submitted by Leslie Woodford)
The pen pals spent three days sightseeing, barely separated, "to make sure we could have all the time we could have together," Woodford said.
"Before I went to Japan I knew she was my friend. I walked away [knowing], she's one of my best friends," Woodford said.
She's now hoping to show her Newfoundland one day.
"From the moment I got the first letter, we just knew there was something special," Woodford said.
"We always signed the letter, 'my friend.'"
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