Snail mail
Thursday August 02nd 2018, 10:31 pm
Filed under: Friends,Life

(Two new repeats on the baby blanket, three hours+ work.)

I’ve mentioned this story before: when our oldest arrived at her then-new job in Anchorage a few years back, she got introduced to her co-workers, who did the usual where-are-you-from chit-chat.

Karol: Oh! Where in California… Wait. Where on…  !!!

They’d grown up two doors apart. She’d just left for college when we’d moved in.

We were very fond of her parents over the years; we nicknamed their enormous orange Persian, who loved to hang out with our kids, Blob, and the name stuck, to Mrs. F’s amusement (and at the vet’s when she couldn’t remember his real name, a bit of chagrin. She laughed when she told me they’d asked and she’d hesitated but then in a can-you-believe-it tone with a laughing wince, had blurted, Blob…)

When Blob was old and ill, we combed his fur, I spun it and made a pin out of it with seed pearls on toothpicks for knitting needles for the little knitted rectangle to hang down from; Karol’s mom loved it and kept it on her fridge as long as they lived here.

We adored them.

They sold their house about four years ago to be near their grandkids. (Eastward rather than northward.)

But thanks to the smallness of the world, that Alaska connection is how we got word.

The mailman arrived at my driveway about the same time I did today coming home from errands, and–okay, I’m invoking Thumper’s Admonition here. We’ll just say I wanted him to have a reason to bother with taking good care of that two-stamp envelope he was picking up.

That’s going to the couple who used to live two doors down, I told him, motioning to the house his truck was parked in front of. They’re in assisted living now and he’s in hospice care.

The guy’s English is good but he seemed unclear, so I clarified: He’s dying. That card is to thank them for being such good neighbors to my kids while they were growing up.

Oh! I think I remember them! They were old, right?

I was pretty sure he’d just started on this route when they were moving away, so I was glad he knew who this was for.

He looked at the address, wanting to know where they were now. Ohio?

That card is on its way.

 

Postscript:

And the thought occurs to me, having written this: maybe that moment helped that mailman find a sense of purpose to his job today. That card meant something to him.

The choreography of his timing and mine that made all that happen was a small thing that wasn’t.


2 Comments so far
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Indeed…

Comment by Jayleen Hatmaker 08.03.18 @ 6:42 am

and why I still enjoy having a mail[man] who knows the neighborhood and understands the importance of the occasional bit of real mail in-between all the flyers and amazon packages…

Comment by Holly 08.04.18 @ 12:11 pm



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