I was once a letter-writer. So much so, in fact, that when I was in high school and in the midst of a college/career search, the then object-of-my-affection said "I never thought about you going to school to become something --- I just always thought you'd be writing letters somewhere !" Truth is, I often wish I was still filling reams to mail off to my friends. But real life is too demanding. My job... much as I love it, my job takes away a great deal of who and what I enjoy.

So I became a paper-product collector. I can't say I became a consumer because by and large the products are with me. Under this desk and against the wall there are plastic containers full of greeting cards, note cards and stationary. It was on my mind to fish out the thanksgiving cards. I have quite a stash of those, what with my love of autumn.... But in the end, I stood in a grocery store's hallmark aisle and purchased several more packets of cards. I stole an hour one morning last week and HURRIEDLY addressed and signed a few dozen cards. I even ran out of them and had to search for some suitable note cards (which I keep at work) with russet colors to add to the stack. That evening, just to make sure they got on their way, I ate a fast-food dinner in the post office parking lot as dark descended, and then pushed the pile through the slot all while firmly holding to the belief that if I was lucky, these cards would get to their destination the day after the stuffing and cranberry were put away.

Thanksgiving Day noon was hectic. Someone in our family is dying, and plans were revolving around a hospital visit before family gathering and suddenly they were released to home with hospice care. That and my husband forgot to ask when the family was actually gathering. I picked up my phone to carry out that simple fact-finding mission and found a message instead.

I stopped to listen. It was the best friend of one of my aunts. My blood- family, by the way, except for the boy, are all gone now. This is my surrogate aunt in my eyes. She is also the person on the planet whose personality seems most like my mother's. Of course I would remember to send her a card. Actually, what happens is I more often berate myself for not calling her more than I do.

In any case, there is her voice on the phone, and it is seeming significantly weaker. I quickly try to calculate her age while I am listening to the message. It registers that by some miracle, my card has reached her before the day. She is saying thank you over and over. She is, actually, in the midst of a litany. She says it made her day. She says it made her Thanksgiving. She says it did this and this and this. I strain to remember what I wrote beyond our names at the bottom.... MAYBE I jotted that I mean to call her soon. But honestly, I don't think so. I thought she had family. A niece nearby ? But her voice is telling me no; that this card had this effect tells me she is quite alone on this holiday. She ends with "thank you, thank you, thank you for always thinking of me."

Such a little thing to do. And honestly, I never expected such a reaction. I file thought of this moment away for use when I am on a self- deprecating binge because, believe me, I am prone to those. I also file thought of this moment ---of the gratitude in her voice ---under 'reasons to pull more note cards from the boxes beneath the desk.'

I cannot be the letter-writer I once was, much as I would like to be. But I should really thin out my greeting card stash and be sure to write a few lines...especially if one in a hundred cards sent could have this effect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye
from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems