One of my sisters always remembered to send cards for every family holiday. Or birthday. Or special day. Or just because. She even managed to send us a beautiful card after she passed away that said ‘love you!’ inside. At Christmas every year she sent out a calendar with family dates as a gentle reminder that we, too, could remember to send out a card. Every year I opened that calendar positive that this year I would do so. I rarely did.

Another sister sends me unique bear cards. The card section in grocery stores these days are bland and boring. Hallmark cards that are all alike. When I was young stationary stores had unique cards that weren’t mass produced. This sister still finds those types of cards. It’s become a challenge for me to also find unique cards to mail her. I love my bear cards and have them around my writing space.

Today I received a card like no other I’ve seen. It was blank. Inside was a stamped envelope but with no address written on it. With the blank card and the blank envelope was a slip of paper. This is what it said.

‘I wanted to send a note to say thank you for the food and friendship you provided to Bruce this summer. When this started we had no idea where we were headed and as things came to the conclusion, and Bruce made choices for his life path, he was grateful for the love and care and kindness you provided…Don’t forget to write. This note provides you the opportunity (and a request) to write to someone you care about by sending the writing out in the note card and passing it forward through the US mail.’

Don’t forget to write.

When my oldest sister was still alive the three of us shared something like a chain card. I can’t remember who started it, but one of us would receive it, add a chatty note, and mail it on to the next one. It would then circle back and keep going. It never got to the point where we had to mail it in a big box, but it was like an ongoing diary kept by three sisters. We still have that and can pull it out and see the handwriting and hear the voices in the words.

Sending on this blank card to someone I care about seems profound somehow. It feels like honoring the sister who always remembered to send us mail. It feels like sending the friendship of the one who passed away out into the wind to wing its way into the unknown. It feels like giving stories, and at the same time, like giving the gift of a blank paper for someone else’s story that needs to be told.

What an amazing gift I received in the mail today. The power of the blank piece of paper. The love and grieving and hope from someone I care about. The opportunity to reach out to someone else I care about. I don’t know how I will choose. I might have to go shopping for a cart-full of blank cards and envelopes.

Don’t forget to write.