What the Postal Carrier Really Brings in the Mail

Remember the Postal Carrier This Holiday Season
By Debra Phillips
Everyone is cutting back this holiday season, but the postal carrier is one person who tends to be overlooked even during the most lavish of holidays.
The postal carrier is something of an unsung hero. Quietly, each day, he or she bundles up mail for entire communities and stops by houses, one by one, to deliver cards, letters, and packages of various sizes and weights from locations nearby and afar. Only Santa Claus is known for so many single stops at individual homes during a given day, but the postal carriers repeat their rounds daily throughout the year. Through all
four seasons, when the temperature freezes, when it scorches, and every degree between, through beautiful and treacherous weather, over paved roads and roads made of dirt and gravel, the postal carriers drive or walk with deliveries in hand, battling overgrown hedges and overgrown dogs along the way.
What many people first think of when they consider the mail is the junk mail, the advertisements, and, primarily, the bills that seem to always be arriving without any respite. But, between all of these are the small physical reminders of our good fortune. There, between the coupons for hamburgers and the ad trying to sell televisions, is the birthday card with the front image covered in glitter from a friend we've known for years though we seldom get to see. Amidst the bills, which often remind us of the house that shelters us, the car we drive, or the various things that we have to offer us physical comforts, are the items that remind us of our emotional comforts such as the small package of photographs of young grandchildren playing in their first snowfall or feeding a small animal in the park, the letter from a sibling reminding us of a humorous moment from childhood that he just happened to recall one day, a quick note from a son stationed in a country faraway, or an invitation to a niece's wedding.
Proof of life, a small sampling of history exists in those items delivered each day to our mailboxes. It is within the words on those simple pieces of paper that we can hold in our hands and then tuck away safely in a dresser drawer wrapped up in a rubber band where we can read of the past, the present, and the future as we read of friends and relatives deciding on a college major, acting in a local play, marrying, expecting a first child, or sharing a favorite recipe for sugar cookies that was located in an old recipe file that has been handed down for generations.
Even with e-mail, voice mail, and telephone calls, something special and unique would be lost to us forever if we didn't have the postal carriers bringing news and announcements from friends and family each day, if we lost the ability to share pieces of our lives in this physical form that is unlike any other. Without the postal carriers, none of us would have that stack of love letters, the addresses faded a bit and the paper yellowed, sitting quietly in a box situated at the back of the closet; none of us would have that one-of-a-kind priceless piece of artwork that a young toddler who lives several states away finger-painted in watercolor for Grandparent's Day; none of us would know the excitement and anticipation of opening the mailbox to find the letter we've been waiting for and then tearing open the envelope while we walk back towards the house, hoping to learn if we passed an exam, if we were accepted to the college we really wanted to attend, or if we made it into the second round of interviews for a job, stopping midway between the mailbox and the front door to jump up and down gleefully with the letter still in our hands.

The postal carriers backpack abundant added than just belletrist in those accoutrements of mail; they backpack pieces of our hearts. So, let's bethink our postal carriers this division with a abrupt note, a appealing card, some bootleg cookies, or a appetizing box of chocolates, and acknowledge them for constant so abundant to accompany us our little reminders of how abundant we accept to be beholden for this season.
And, to one accurate postal carrier who has delivered the cards and belletrist and bales this year through floods and forth anchorage that had become ambiguous from all of the rain, Merry Christmas to Ronda...travel safely.