The Mailbox

When I was a teenager, I traveled with a youth group to Washington, DC to the LDS Temple.

These trips were always quite grand in our youthful minds.

It was a four day trip – one day driving, one day site seeing, one day at the temple and one day driving home. I still remember this first trip because “We are the World” was the popular song as well as Madonna’s “Material Girl.” Music that was a far cry from the purpose of our travels, but remembered just the same.

At the temple, we all couldn’t participate at once and so we sat in a waiting room where various videos were played. Cipher in the Snow was a sad story about a boy that was neglected by a drunken care giver and somehow the story all worked out in the end. Another was about the blind man that married a woman that had low self-esteem and she worried he wouldn’t love her once he re-gained his eyesight through corrective surgery.

For some reason, “The Mailbox” stuck in my mind the most. It depicted the day in and day out of an older woman who lived alone. She would walk to the mailbox, down her long driveway, on a daily basis to see if she had received mail from her sons and daughters and grandchildren. The neighbor boy came around to visit her periodically with his mother, but otherwise she led a fairly lonely life. She lived for a letter or a phone call and typically received neither.

One cold wintry day she trod out to the mailbox and there was a letter!

She couldn’t wait to get back to the house to open it and find out the latest happenings in her children/grandchildren’s lives. But, in all the excitement and flurry she was able to open it, read a few lines and then fell back in her chair suffering from a massive heartache.

I’m not sure if I was a huge letter writer before this time. I know that my parents taught me to write frequent notes and letters to friends and family. But, this little movie vignette stuck with me and I vowed to make a better effort of communicating with those people close to me that needed more support, love and contact in their lives.

When I was in my early 20s, I had returned home from serving an LDS mission and started back into my college degree. My grammy had died and my grampy was having a difficult time of it, but was still healthy and strong. But, over the next couple of years it was clear that he wasn’t going to live that long out of loneliness for my grammy.

I felt strongly one day that I should write a letter and I wrote a long one. Luckily, he was able to read it…about a week before he died. I have never regretted writing that note. It has been a source of comfort for as long as I can remember.

Now my other grandparents are in their 90s and are starting to find it difficult to get around, communicate and involve themselves in meaningful activities. They are lonely.

They need mail!

So, I've decided to do what I should already have been doing - sending a letter a week! I mean, how hard can it really be? These people helped bring me into this world and I don't have time to send a photo, write a letter or share a card?

I've done it for a couple of weeks and vow to continue, especially since I've been the recipient of some cards and packages recently that completely made my day.

There are so many ways to serve out there and I'm thinking if we all just did a little more in the way of notes, cards, photos and thank you sharing - well, perhaps the world would be a bit of a better place.

Off to write a letter!