Five Minute Fridays: Mail – Non-Descript Address, Lifegiving Words

Five Minute Fridays: Mail – Non-Descript Address, Lifegiving Words

Watching from the sidelines while my daughter, pen in hand, signed her very life away.  She joined the Navy the day she turned eighteen.  I knew it would be hard to say goodbye. I was braced. I was ready. My arms ached for one last hug. 

She had been in a back room of the recruiting office for what seemed like an eternity. I wriggled in my chair, arms still aching. The recruiter returned alone. He handed me a piece of paper with a non-descript address for a post office box in a non-descript state and simply said “write letters; lots of them.”    My daughter was gone. No goodbyes. No relief for aching arms. Only words to be penned and sent. Often.

I sat for hours over the first piece of tear stained paper trying to choose just the right words. How could I write to my now missing daughter without handing her a page filled with the sadness I felt so deeply.  I used my letter writing as a form of worship. I asked God to help me write the words he knew my daughter needed to hear.  I asked for help to share my heart without sharing my grief.

I mailed hundreds of envelopes and postcards to that non-descript post office box; at least one every day.  I filled the mailbox with poems, scriptures and a playbook of daily events.  I pondered questions that would go unanswered and never failed to express my love.  I could imagine her listening for her name during mail call.  I could imagine the hundreds of non-descript envelopes in her hands.  And I recognized, mail could bring life, hope, humor, connect between miles and impart legacy.






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