I've always loved getting the mail.
When I was young, I looked forward to anything that had my name on it. Even the Pizza Hut card that always said "Sura" instead of "Sara." I loved getting product samples in the mail. I loved anytime there was anything personal in there. I would try to figure out who had sent it just be looking at the writing, and then see when it was sent by looking at the postmark.
When I got into college, I checked my mail everyday without fail.
As an adult, I was upset when I couldn't get to the Post Office before they closed, watched for the mailman on Saturday, and was a little upset on Sunday that there wouldn't be mail that day.
So maybe I was a bit obsessed.
I hate checking the mail now.
It's not the bills that we get (most of those get emailed to me anyway). Infact, there is nothing IN the mailbox that upsets me. It's what ISN'T in there that makes me sad.
It's Valentine's Day. And I know that I can wait and wait, and I won't have a Valentine from my Mom.
Mom FED my mail obsession. Seldom a week went by that I didn't have something from her in there to open (even when I lived down the road from her!). I would get it and know right away by her elegant script who it was from. More often than not, it was a newspaper clipping that she had seen that she thought I might be interested in, or an article from a magazine, or a receipt from a deposit she had made for me.
Even if I would wonder WHY she had sent it to me, or tossed it in the trash with little thought, I knew in that moment that she had been thinking of me. She had taken the time to cut it out, address it, and put it in the mail for me.
Instead of a Gold Crown, Hallmark should have had a picture of my mom on their labels, because she spent as much there as anyone!
I hate getting the mail now. I hate knowing that those silly little clippings aren't going to be there. I hate knowing that another holiday or birthday has passed without her. I hate that Suttie won't get a "Congratulations on Being Potty-Trained" card like Keegers did.
I hate everything about it.
Sara- I can sooo relate to this. My mom called me every morning at 9:30ish at work. We'd talk for about 20 minutes or longer. Sometimes about important stuff and sometimes about nothing. But it was the fact we talked at the same time everyday. When she passed I changed the ringer on our second line at work and dreaded everyday about that time.
ReplyDelete((hugs)) the little things are sometimes the things one misses the most.
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