The Envelope

It started with an envelope.

Yesterday, after we had played several board games, my Kindergartner granddaughter Paige was looking through the various kinds of paper in my craft box, intending to draw or write something during her after-school visit with me. She found a greeting card envelope, selected a piece of yellow card stock, and told me she wanted to make a card for “Grampa.”  

Grampa, aka my late husband, passed away when Paige was not yet three years old. I doubt she can really remember him, but on my kitchen counter are two digital photo frames that scroll through family photos including many of him, some even with her as a baby or toddler. When Paige is eating her after-school snack, she looks at those photos, and often either names some of the people in them, or asks me who they are. Some are of my parents and grandparents, and I have on occasion mentioned that they, like Grampa, have died, and are happily living in Heaven now. Whether seeing photos of Grampa keeps real memories of him fresh in her mind, or that she just continues to love her idea of him, I know not.

While writing, Paige periodically asked me about the spelling of some of the words, and depending on my response, she would write over, or cross out some letters.

“Is this how you spell “Dear?”

“Yes.”

“How do you spell ‘miss?’”

“M-I-S-S.”

After seeing what she had written, she looked up and me and said, “No, not that kind. I mean I miss Grampa.”

“Oh! Well, both kinds of ‘miss’ are spelled the same way, but if it’s a person, like Miss Susan, it starts with a capital––an upper-case ‘M.’ If it’s the feeling, it’s a small, lower-case ‘m.’”

Paige repeatedly tried writing a lower-case “m” over the capital “M” she had written, but finally scribbled completely over the resulting mess, and squeezed a small “m” between the scribbled patch and “iss.”

The completed message, written in various colors of ink, and adorned with one large outline of a heart and one pasted on cut-out heart colored dark blue with an aqua center, read:

Dear Grampa,

I LOVE YOU So, So, much

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXo   I

[scribbled patch]miss you.

[scribbled-out letter“I”] That my

heart feels like a bird songs

and my heart feels like a flower.

Although she had asked me how to spell “heart,” “feels,” “songs” and “flower,” she explained that “like” and “and” were “sight words” she had recently learned. 

She put the finished card in the envelope, carefully licked and sealed it, and wrote “To: Grampa” on the front.

It was then past time to take her home for dinner. As we hurried out to my car, she stopped to place the envelope on the corner of the counter where she has her snack, saying, “If he comes back here, he’ll see it.”

Greatly surprised and taken aback, I said nothing, but suddenly wished against all reason that when I returned home I would find only an empty envelope on the counter.