Postal worker goes above and beyond for a Chronicle subscriber
By Mike Sherry /
Editor
This has been a tough year for all of us, what with a raging pandemic and poisonous politics.
Heartwarming stories have been in desperately short supply, which is why I want to share a random act of kindness that came to our attention here at The Chronicle. That the story reaffirmed our work was icing on the cake.
To maintain the privacy of the beneficiary, and at the request of the good Samaritan, we are maintaining the anonymity of the main characters.
It all started in early November, when a longtime subscriber in Overland Park cancelled her subscription. “She did not give me a reason, just stop the paper,” our circulation director, David Nevels, told us in an email. “It happens.”
Two weeks later, Nevels received an email from the elderly woman’s postal carrier. The carrier wished to renew the woman’s subscription to The Chronicle. The carrier included her phone number so Nevels could call for her credit card information.
In my experience, mail carriers are unfailingly polite. They also generally tromp by with the single-mindedness of a soldier on patrol.
But this carrier, who has been on her Overland Park route for about four years, had talked enough with the elderly lady to find out that she had never married and had no children.
The carrier realized The Chronicle had stopped coming – even leaving the woman a note reminding her to resubscribe. But when the two women had occasion to chat, the older lady told the carrier she had cancelled The Chronicle because she could not afford it.
“It broke my heart,” the carrier wrote to Nevels. “Being alone, elderly and childless is hard any time but during this pandemic it is even worse. I would hate for her to lose an outside contact to the world.”
We are living in a time where everyone seems angry.
Anti-maskers blast elected officials. Parents scream at school board members. Protesters jeer police. Partisans trade insults.
That is why the carrier’s small gesture resonates more strongly now, when even the most basic nods to civility, manners and neighborliness seem as anachronistic as mask-free weddings, office holiday parties, and air travel.
Remember, too, the carrier’s magnanimity came at a time when the very credibility of the U.S. Postal Service itself was under attack.
Critics were accusing the postmaster general of attempting to stifle the flood of mail-in ballots expected because of the pandemic. Opponents of mail-in ballots had cast doubts on carriers themselves by pointing out instances where members of their ranks were facing federal charges for dumping mail.
You don’t have to be Karl Menninger to deduce the psychological effects of such coarseness and uncertainty.
Nonprofits like the World Health Organization and Kaiser Family Foundation have confirmed increased anxiety produced by the pandemic and the election. And even in the best of times, the holidays can be stressful.
Add all that on top of the potential depression brought on by social isolation, and you can see how our elderly subscriber could have needed The Chronicle now more than ever.
I called the Overland Park carrier to learn more about her and to find out more of the backstory of her friendship with the elderly woman.
The carrier chastised herself for not knowing the woman’s age, thinking that the subscriber had told her excitedly last year that she was a twin and was about to celebrate her birthday. The carrier thinks that the woman is 84.
But even at that age, the woman was working at a daycare facility until being laid off during the pandemic.
That had angered the carrier, who sensed the woman’s age had worked against her. As the mother of a child with Down syndrome, the carrier does not take kindly to any hint of discrimination.
The carrier could not stand to think of a shut-in being cut off from her faith community at a time like this or losing a longtime lifeline to the outside world. The carrier’s guess is that the woman is not exactly a whiz with technology, so it is doubtful she has online access.
“I can’t imagine being locked in your house with only the TV,” she said, “especially as nasty as the election was.”
The root of her compassion is simple: She hopes someone would’ve done the same thing for her grandparents when they were alive. That’s why she also tidied up the yard of another elderly person on her route.
She and I talked for about 15 minutes. As we were about to hang up, she asked if she could add one more thing.
With Hanukkah coming up, she implored folks to keep lonely seniors in their thoughts. She said, “I wish people would try to remember them and reach out to them because of the type of year it has been.”