Love letter - story about a letter from a 'Secret Pal'
In November 1980, Linda's eight-year-old son, Andy, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. After he returned home from his first hospital stay, he was welcomed with dozens of cards and letters from friends and relatives.
"No matter how bad he felt before the mailman arrived," Linda remembered, "he always felt better afterward." Inevitably, however, the flood of cards and letters tapered off. So did Andy's cheerful spirit. Concerned, Linda mailed him a note she wrote herself and signed it "Your secret pal." Andy perked up. After that, Linda never let a day go by without putting another cheerful message in the mail for her little boy.
After sending Andy letters for nearly a month, Linda found him one day drawing a picture of two unicorns. It was for his "secret pal," he said. After putting Andy to bed that night, Linda picked up the drawing. At the bottom, he had written "P.S. Mom, I love you."
He had known all along who was sending him the letters! But that didn't matter--what mattered was that they made him happy and lifted his spirits. Andy's precious life ended less than four years later; he died on August 31, 1984.
"Although I had two other wonderful children," Linda remembered, "the grief and pain of losing Andy was unbearable. I felt my life was over because his was over." Sorting through her son's belongings, she found a shoebox in his closet. Inside the box was his address book listing all the friends he'd made at a "cancer camp" not long before he died. The address book gave Linda the idea that Andy would have liked her to be a "secret pal" to his sick friends the way she'd been to him.
She decided to send one card to each child in Andy's book. Before she'd gotten through the list, one twelve-year-old boy wrote to thank her. In his letter he told her, "I didn't think anyone knew I was alive." Those words made Linda realize someone else was hurting besides herself. She cried bitterly, not for herself or for Andy this time, but for the lonely, scared child who needed to know someone cared.
Just after responding to that boy's letter, she received a similar note from another child on Andy's list. That was it. She had found her calling, a purpose that gave passion and meaning to her life. She vowed then to write to any child who needed her until they stopped writing her back.
Her cards and letters were brief, positive, and always personalized. The children responded continually and their parents did too, each thanking her for renewing life in their child. Linda got friends and neighbors to help with her mission, and an organization of letter writers began to form.
Today, over ten years after Linda wrote her first letter to a child she'd never met, Love Letters, Inc., sends out more than 60,000 pieces of mail a year. Thirty-five volunteers collectively contribute 400 hours for each weekly mailing. Working out of temporary, donated space, the group survives from week to week on donations of stamps, money, and office supplies from the community and groups like the Rotary Club and Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Excerpted/Adapted from Unstoppable
Copyright 1998 by Cynthia Kersey
www.unstoppable.net
Nia's note: I listened this story on the last Sunday service. I liked it very much. The morale of this story is that you can ALWAYS mean something to the people surround you. One chap shared a story, too, during the service. He gave a cool illustration: people are going out from a church. On the exit door, there is board hanging, saying: "you are entering a mission field". Thus, friends, when you leave your house, your office, your neigbourhood, your car to enter your univeristy, your office; you are entering a mission field, YOUR mission field. Be salt and light for your friends!
source: http://www.kevineikenberry.com/blogs/2005/12/love-letters.asp
"No matter how bad he felt before the mailman arrived," Linda remembered, "he always felt better afterward." Inevitably, however, the flood of cards and letters tapered off. So did Andy's cheerful spirit. Concerned, Linda mailed him a note she wrote herself and signed it "Your secret pal." Andy perked up. After that, Linda never let a day go by without putting another cheerful message in the mail for her little boy.
After sending Andy letters for nearly a month, Linda found him one day drawing a picture of two unicorns. It was for his "secret pal," he said. After putting Andy to bed that night, Linda picked up the drawing. At the bottom, he had written "P.S. Mom, I love you."
He had known all along who was sending him the letters! But that didn't matter--what mattered was that they made him happy and lifted his spirits. Andy's precious life ended less than four years later; he died on August 31, 1984.
"Although I had two other wonderful children," Linda remembered, "the grief and pain of losing Andy was unbearable. I felt my life was over because his was over." Sorting through her son's belongings, she found a shoebox in his closet. Inside the box was his address book listing all the friends he'd made at a "cancer camp" not long before he died. The address book gave Linda the idea that Andy would have liked her to be a "secret pal" to his sick friends the way she'd been to him.
She decided to send one card to each child in Andy's book. Before she'd gotten through the list, one twelve-year-old boy wrote to thank her. In his letter he told her, "I didn't think anyone knew I was alive." Those words made Linda realize someone else was hurting besides herself. She cried bitterly, not for herself or for Andy this time, but for the lonely, scared child who needed to know someone cared.
Just after responding to that boy's letter, she received a similar note from another child on Andy's list. That was it. She had found her calling, a purpose that gave passion and meaning to her life. She vowed then to write to any child who needed her until they stopped writing her back.
Her cards and letters were brief, positive, and always personalized. The children responded continually and their parents did too, each thanking her for renewing life in their child. Linda got friends and neighbors to help with her mission, and an organization of letter writers began to form.
Today, over ten years after Linda wrote her first letter to a child she'd never met, Love Letters, Inc., sends out more than 60,000 pieces of mail a year. Thirty-five volunteers collectively contribute 400 hours for each weekly mailing. Working out of temporary, donated space, the group survives from week to week on donations of stamps, money, and office supplies from the community and groups like the Rotary Club and Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Excerpted/Adapted from Unstoppable
Copyright 1998 by Cynthia Kersey
www.unstoppable.net
Nia's note: I listened this story on the last Sunday service. I liked it very much. The morale of this story is that you can ALWAYS mean something to the people surround you. One chap shared a story, too, during the service. He gave a cool illustration: people are going out from a church. On the exit door, there is board hanging, saying: "you are entering a mission field". Thus, friends, when you leave your house, your office, your neigbourhood, your car to enter your univeristy, your office; you are entering a mission field, YOUR mission field. Be salt and light for your friends!
source: http://www.kevineikenberry.com/blogs/2005/12/love-letters.asp
posted by Oma Nia at
4:06 AM
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