What You’ll Miss

MaMa sends Hollie mail every week.

It’s a kind of devotion that I admire. I used to write to my Nana sporadically. I respond to my cousin’s letters almost immediately. But they’re sporadic, too.

I have a friend who has never failed to send a card for appropriate holidays. Her mom sends them, too. They arrive within days of one another.

I am not that organized.

So my mom’s weekly ritual of filling out the note and folding it into the envelope and dropping it into the mail box is one that demonstrates her devotion to my daughter. And we’re so blessed by that devotion.

As we age, the rituals of our lives together fade.

We used to swim on the summer league team and dad would make us milkshakes before meets.

We used to open one gift every Christmas Eve, it was always new pajamas and always from my Dad’s mom (though we learned later my mom had bought them, wrapped them, and signed Nell’s name).

Kristen and I used to go to NASCAR races together. We always got two twelve packs each: one in bottles for tailgating before and after, one in cans for during. And yes, we each drank an entire case of beer at a NASCAR race.

Charlie and I used to drag Saturday’s cooler of beer into the living room and lay on the futon in front of the television all day watching the NFL on Sundays. Naked.

So many things have changed over so many years that I have a sort of cynicism for ritual. I don’t value traditions the way some people do. I don’t see the point of trying to replicate the same experience we’ve already had. Let’s have a new one.

But my cynicism may be the root of a terrible weed.

When I handed Hollie her MaMa’s card out of the stack of mail the other day, she dropped it on the ground and walked away.

I know she’s five and easily distracted. I know she’s a kid and she doesn’t understand that was disrespectful. I know she’s learning that every day is fresh and that the same-old same-old can be taken for granted.

I paused, stunned, a few paces behind her.

“Hey!” I said. “Pick that up.”

“Ugh, mahhhhhhm,” she moaned.

I stepped closer to her, stood over her.

“Where is Nana?” I asked her.

“What?”

“Where is Nana? Answer the question.”

“She’s an angel in Heaven,” she said, meekly, not sure where this was going.

“That's right,” I said, “And I would give anything to have a note in the mail from her. But I don’t. You have one from your MaMa and you better start recognizing how lucky that makes you.”

And then I took a deep breath and swallowed back the tears that had welled in my throat and said, “Now pick it up.”

She did. Then she stepped toward me and wrapped her arms around me. “I’m sorry,” she said.

I could tell mom to stop sending them. We see mom several times a month, so really, why does mail matter?

But the ritual matters.

For mom it’s sending a message of love to someone she values.

For me it’s a reminder that my mom loves us, all of us, and that she’s dedicated to us.

For Hollie it’s a lesson in gratitude. 

Other children don’t have people who love them like this. There are thousands of children who will never know that kind of love. Who will die too young because no one cared enough to save them.

She doesn’t know that now. She couldn’t fathom it.

But someday she’ll understand and she’ll see those cards as evidence of the devotion her MaMa had to her. 

"Someday," I told her, "MaMa will be an angel, too." 

And Hollie will wish with every breath in her body that she could go to the mailbox and find one of those envelopes. In MaMa’s neat print. With Hollie’s name and address.

And love. So much love. Tucked inside.

This is in response to the Wordsmith Studio weekly prompt. Click here.