TRIBUTE TO MY POSTMAN (at Christmas) published

TRIBUTE TO MY POSTMAN

It was the Christmas season and the previous year I had left a gift for my postman on a decrepit old chair, inside my small porch.  When the day had passed and I received my mail, I noticed that my small gift remained though the card that said “for my postman” was gone.   

Not disheartened, I left the small gift there for a week where it remained. 

The following week, I replaced the small gift with another.  I left a note, “For my post man.”   Again, the gift remained, though my mail was delivered promptly each day. 

I did not give up and on the third week after placing a bigger gift on the tired chair, I came home and was excited that the gift was gone.  My mail waited eagerly for me.  I marveled that finally my post man was pleased with a gift that I had left.  You see they were all wrapped so that the interior could be seen.

A year has gone by and Christmas is creeping up.  It has not snowed and I am weighed down with school work so I am not in the holiday spirit.  But I have not forgotten my postman so once again I left a small gift for him with a card and placed the card and the small gift on the same decrepit old chair.  Only this time I placed the chair directly in front of my door which he would have to move or lean over to put the mail through my letter opening, on the old door of my old home.  I then promptly focused on my exam question and forgot my mail and mail man.

I heard a loud knock at my front door.  I climbed down the tired stairs and rushed to the front door opening it.  There stood my postman, all rosy from the cold.  He looked at me and I thought he would cry.  He must have hated my gift, I thought.  Instead he looked at me solemnly and thanked me.  “You have no idea how much this means to me.  Even a card makes me very happy.  Thank you so much.”

I looked at him in surprise and thanked him.  Like a fool I babbled about last year leaving different gifts which I thought he had dismissed because he did not like them.  He assured me that he appreciates any gift or card but since he moves quickly when he delivers the mail he may have missed his gifts.  He kept thanking me for his small gift and I felt dumbfounded.

You see my postman delivers the mail into the letter opening of my door at all times.  He does not save time doing this for he could easily just leave it on the decrepit old chair in my small porch. 

I have watched my postman walk or run in the rain during intense suffocating heat, during storms and with snow so deep it makes one wonder how he does his job at all.  Yet, my postman always has a friendly smile and shouts out a greeting whenever he sees me outside.

So you see, though I left him gifts, outside my door which I thought he did not want, I kept replacing them because he more than deserves a gift that he wants.

And when my post man was so appreciative with my small gift yesterday it was I who fought tears as I shut the door.