It's In The Mail

A typical walk to the mail box yields a few bills, a credit card offer, an official looking envelope with a little peak at something resembling a large figured check made out to me, and of course the smallish figured Victoria's Secret Magazine. Nothing to make the heart race, still I like checking the mail box. Everyday there is the anticipation of a gift. Something special in the mail box for me; what could it be today?

Real mail is cool. It's personal. Nothing like the electronic dashes and dots that make up e-mail. Where's the personality in e-mail? Tic a tic a tic tic a on the key board, the letters all look the same. No handwriting. No doodles in the margins. No personality in the signature. No tear drops on the paper. And definitely no scent of a spritz of perfume. (OK, that was something I last received in 1979 but I remember!)

The entire process of real mail makes the postal service worth keeping. Somewhere, someone makes a decision to send something to another person. That something is an idea, a suggestion, a thought, a share, a wish. Something that started in their personal self. They take the time to put the information on paper, insert it in an envelope, LICK the envelope with their own personal saliva, stick on a self adhesive stamp that cost them a hard earned quater, dime and two pennies. And then, unless the mail (man) person picks up at their box, they drove to the post office and dropped the envelope in the box labled STAMPED, which is segregated from the lower class junk box of METERED mail, and then flown, drove, and sorted until the envelope reaches your personal box, delivered by a kind looking person who's not weary the military style blue wool uniform of Jerry Sybeldon, my neighborhoood mail main in the 1960's. A sweet process of human touch.

I had an Aunt who used to write. Aunt Blanche. My Dad's sister. She did her part to maintian the connection between our parent's generation and the children and their children. There must have been dozens and dozens of people in her friends and family network. Blanche wrote letters to everyone a couple of times a year. Those were sweet letters. When I think of Blanche I remember her eyes, her voice, and her letters. The letters arrived in those tiny envelopes they must not make anymore, the kind that held letters from friends and family, not banks. Reading Aunt Blanche's letters I could hear her voice, "Hello Tommy. How is Cathy and the boys? They must be getting big now. Your mother tells me Aaron is into football and Patrick is playing baseball. They sure grow up fast...."

Aaron and I visited Blanche during her last summer in '02. She gave us a tape of her husband's songs. We made the tape into CD's. Aaron copied them onto discs and we mailed a bunch to Blanche. She mailed them to the nieces and aunts. She probably wrote a letter with each -- "Tommy and Aaron made these recordings of Ted's songs. To hear Ted singing so clear makes me feel like it's 1972 again..." That's a good use of mail.


Today's mail was uneventful at first look. Statements, bank offer, a clothing magazine. I didn't notice the 8 1/2 by 6 white, yellow, and blue glossy newsletter. A second look through the stack revealed the piece. Donor Services--Weaving Lives Together. The newletter is taped closed with one of those circle pieces of tape. I was hesitant to break the seal. There are always pictures of "Donors" when they had their life. Before their tissues were weaved into other lives. The pictures show say to me there are parents out there who hurt like we do. Siblings who hurt like our son. Relatives who are hurt and feel helpless like our's. I don't want to be on the Donor Services mailing list. What I mean is I don't want to be on the list by the way we came to be on the list.

Two years ago Aaron was alive and we were planning ahead. Today we are on the Donor Services mailing list because we were asked in the later afernoon of May 10, 205 if Aaron would have wanted to contribute. A necessary but brutal question for which we had not planned ahead. We are on the mailing list. I'd rather be receiving a letter from Aaron asking for money, cookies, or advice. Or to get a letter that just said, "Love Ya! Peace. Goodtimes. AJ. Air Bear. Your son, Aaron."


Is there a mail box in heaven?

Missing you.
Dad