The Little Card That Could

I got a birthday card in the mail today from my aunt Jo Jo. The only person left that I know who still sends birthday greetings to the other side of the world by snail mail. What was so special about this card is that she made the effort to put it in the mail and send it to me. Sometimes, all of these new technologies that make our lives so much faster mean that the old fashioned ways of doing things mean a whole lot more.

What was extra cool about this card was that it landed in my mailbox exactly on my birthday AND AND AND… there was no postage stamp. In fact, she had emailed me the other day to tell me it would be late arriving because it would have to come back to her since it had no stamp. But in actual fact, it came through the US mail and onto Malaysian mail with no stamp at all. Oddly enough, not only did it get all the way here, at no time in its journey did it actually get a post mark of any kind on it.

This is in fact a lesson to me. I too have resorted to silly ecards and text messages for birthdays and other occasions (though I do make the effort to call on those days). AND, thank you to everyone who did send an email or a message. When you are far from home these thing count more than you might imagine. But today I stuck that card AND the envelope onto the wall above my desk. From here I have a daily reminder that a piece of cardboard that sails across oceans can really make a person’s day. In a little larger perspective it says to me, it’s the little things that take a little extra effort that really count in life.