Uncommon Service
Last week, we lost our mail carrier. I’m not sure if Mary was transferred or if the left she Postal Service altogether, but she left us a note letting us know that she’d miss us and hoped to run into us around town from time to time. When she ceased being our mail carrier, we lost a level of service that was far above the norm. Since my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, and I live within steps of each other, all our mailboxes are next to each other. We got to know Mary pretty well over the years in which she delivered our mail.
Usually the mail carrier is a faceless entity, whom you only see when there’s a package or something you have to sign for. Not Mary. She waved anytime she drove by and saw one of us. If any of us happened to be headed to the mailbox when she delivered, we’d chat with her for a minute. My parents even gave her a gift each Christmas. If one of us didn’t have any mail on a given day, which is an unusual thing, she would actually leave a sticky note in the mailbox telling us so.
Little things like those set her apart from any mail carrier I’ve ever dealt with. It’s a truly rare thing to actually develop a relationship with someone like your mail carrier. The level of service Mary provided our families…especially because she didn’t have to…was especially unusual. I wish Mary the best of blessings and luck in whatever she’s doing now.
How often do you go the extra mile for others? Do you ever do things you don’t have to do just to help someone else? To be honest, those questions are hard ones for me to answer. I’m not as good at that sort of thing as I ought to be…or as I’d like to be. But no matter what we do or whose paths we cross, there are little actions and kindnesses we can engage in that will bless others, that will make their day easier, or that will make them smile. Hopefully we can all engage in those sort of seemingly small, but truly revolutionary acts.
Photo by Mikaela Wiedenhoff on Unsplash