Unexpected Delivery

In today’s world of technology and so much of our communication being via e -mail or texts, most of us, myself included, find it unnecessary to go the post office. We all know we have them, after all, our mail must come from somewhere and we see the mail carriers out doing their deliveries, sometimes even on Sundays.

Depending on where a person lives, they may get their mail in a mailbox in front of their house, but, in my case, my mail is delivered to a box assigned to me according to my address, in a cluster of boxes at the end of the street. Because of this, I don’t go to my mailbox every day, I usually go about twice a week. Since it was Wednesday and I had gone to the mailbox on the previous Friday, I decided to go, and since I was going out to do some errands anyway, I could stop on my way out. It always seemed to be the same, nothing important in the stack, junk, junk, junk, but then, the last piece was a pink slip informing me that there was a certified letter that I needed to get at the post office.

The local post office wasn’t far away, about a ten-minute drive, but I dreaded going there, it was an inconvenience that I didn’t plan on when I had other things to do and there was always a line of people waiting. I tended to be impatient when I had to wait. Oh, well, I thought to myself, let me just go and get it over with.  After I parked and walked in, I saw I wasn’t wrong! There was a line of people waiting, but fortunately, there were three clerks working who seemed to be very efficient and the line was moving quickly, however, as I was standing in line, I noticed a young woman in front of me, even from the back I could tell she was anxious. Her clothes were worn, but clean, and her shoulder length brown hair was uncombed. I couldn’t see her face until she got to the counter for her turn, as she handed the clerk a large manilla envelope, I could see she was crying. Her nose and eyes were puffy and red, and, in her hand, she held a well-used, rumpled tissue. As she turned to walk out, I paused before approaching the counter, touched her arm, and asked her, “Are you O.K.?” She didn’t look up or acknowledge me but put her head down and walked out. My heart went out to her. As soon as the clerk gave me my letter, I hurried out the door, hoping to find her, something told me I needed to. While standing on the sidewalk, I scanned the parking lot. There were several cars, but towards the end of the lot, facing the

main street, I saw a small, silver, Nissan with someone sitting in it. Because I had only briefly seen her face, I wasn’t sure it was her but as I slowly approached the driver’s side, I could see it was, sitting with her head down, crying. I didn’t want to scare her, so I stood by the window, waiting for her to see me. I gently knocked on the window, “Can I do something to help?” I asked her as she looked up at me. “I’m Grace,” I told her, “Do you need someone to talk to, what’s your name?” She lowered the window about halfway and with a shaky, hoarse voice, she answered, “I’m Laurie.” “Hi, Laurie,” I replied, “It seems you’re having a bad day.” As I was talking, I heard the click of the door unlocking. “Would you like me to come sit with you?” I asked, “Yes, please,” she answered, “If you don’t mind.” As soon as I got in and sat in the passenger seat, she fell into my arms, crying uncontrollably. Not saying anything, I sat holding her, letting her cry. After a few minutes, she sat up and began to tell me. “I feel so stupid, helpless, embarrassed and humiliated.” she continued, “sitting here in the post office parking lot, crying and talking to a stranger.” “It’s fine,” I told her, “I offered to help, do you want to tell me what’s going on?” After wiping her face and blowing her nose, she proceeded to tell me, “My husband of six years left me three months ago, I got up one morning and he and his truck were gone, no explanation, nothing.” “I tried calling and texting him, with no response, and the police were no help.” “Then out of the blue, three days ago, I received a text from him with a New Hampshire forwarding address, followed by an envelope the next day with divorce papers for me to sign.” “I’m so devastated, I don’t understand and what the hell, New Hampshire of all places, we don’t even know any one there.” I sat quietly, holding her hand, and listening as she talked. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I know I’m a mess, I’m not like this, I’m a professional person with a good job, but I’ve taken some time off because of all this, I can’t think straight, I’m so confused!” She became much calmer as she talked, “I’m sorry,” “You don’t have to be sorry,” I reassured her, “sometimes, we just need someone to talk to.”

We sat in her car in the post office parking lot for nearly an hour, talking and even shared a little laughter. I gave her my phone number, telling her she could call me anytime. “I’ll be O.K.,” she assured me, “especially now that I have you to talk to.”

I sat in my car and watched her as she drove away.

It turned out, my certified letter wasn’t anything important, but it made me realize, the real reason I went to the post office was to do an unexpected delivery of a random act of kindness.