Send the Card

 

I love to send cards - birthday, new baby, thank you, thinking of you and even sympathy cards. I love the idea of someone going to the mailbox and getting something that makes them realize they were thought of. 

I'll add that I have really, REALLY good intentions and them sometimes the moment passes and I never sent the card because it will be "too late." Then there was this moment when my perspective was changed. 

On Sunday at church, there was a young couple and at least one child (this was a long time ago), the wife took the kid(s) to Sunday school and the man was left by himself. We got to the part of the service where the congregation shares their "Joys and Concerns." He raised his hand and was handed the mic. 

"I'm in the military and I have been stationed away from home. This church sent me letters while I was deployed and I should have thank you a long time ago. I really appreciated knowing that people were thinking and praying for me" 

I'm paraphrasing but you get the gist. 

After service, people were shaking his hand and someone said 'There's no expiration on gratitude" 

"Huh, I'd never thought about it like that" but I go back to that still to this day and kind of adapt it to some other sentiments. 

There's this woman at work, we work in very different departments but have served on a few committees together. Her husband died in the Fall and almost as soon as I found out, I pulled out a sympathy card. Then I got busy and I tried to look for her home address. I didn't know her husbands first name or what town she lived in, and their last name -- pretty common. I kept moving this card around on my desk. 

FINALLY, in January, I asked myself "is really that important that you send this to her HOME?? Isn't it more important that she knows you were thinking of her?"

So I just sat down that day at lunch and wrote out the card. I said that I had been thinking of her as she grieved such a significant loss, then said that I had tried to find her home address and that I hoped that she believed that there was no expiration on people sending wishes of kind words. I told myself that maybe getting a card a few months later - when she was, no doubt, still grieving - but when many had returned to their regular programming - might even be a blessing. I dropped the card in an interoffice envelope and sent it on its way. 

Guess what, she emailed me a couple of days later ....

"Got the card - thanks so much for thinking of me! No, there is no expiration on kind words. I'm making it through with the support of all the kind words I've been receiving."

Send the note ... whenever you get to it. I'm putting my money on it will be appreciated whenever it arrives. 

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