Christmas cards

Last time I mentioned doing Halloween cards, and being led to something else.

Actually, there are some things I believe I need to get to that I have not yet, but I want to go over what did happen.

All of these things have been about reaching out. The specific way I felt called to reach out was to put an offer on Facebook if anyone wanted Christmas cards to send me their address. I then put it on Twitter too. That was around December 5th.

I only got five requests: four on Facebook and one through Twitter. It should have been really easy to get that done quickly.

I won't deny my historic tendency toward procrastination, or that a perpetual failure to get my desk and supplies organized held me back, but there was something else.

One nagging thought was a question about what to send whom. The Facebook post had indicated that there might be some homemade art or an original poem. Twitter's character limit abbreviated the message, so there was no reason for the one to expect anything other than a regular card. Not making one didn't feel quite right either.

Meanwhile, my sisters had a long list of cards to write, especially the sister whose career means she encounters new sets of parents every year. She had to do those on her own, but I ended up writing cards for many of our mutual acquaintances.

I was ready to force myself to make the four cards for sure, but stuck on whether the fifth would be handmade. I had the paper out; I tried to start, and yet I couldn't. Then I knew.

The issue was not these five cards; it was all of the cards that I had not been planning on at all. 

I had known going in that I might get a lot of responses; that quickly changed from a worry to a disappointment. It did not mean that there were only five people who might benefit from cards.

At first that meant going through my address book. Sure enough, there were some people that I had not thought of and that my sisters had not thought of. Okay, I can write out those cards.

Then I realized that I needed to go through our ward directory again. There were names that stuck out, and not the same names that stuck out at Halloween. Okay, I wrote those out. It was fine!

I was finally going to get started on the homemade cards. I went to Facebook to check addresses, and a name on my feed popped up. I realized that I needed to go through the directory of our previous ward too.

We did a lot of cards. Most were sent reasonably on time, but of the homemade ones probably only the most local one arrived before Christmas (especially with DeJoy in charge). Someone else needed a letter, I felt, and that didn't get mailed until the 26th. There were phone calls I needed to make, and that happened too.

It was comforting when one of my sisters would suddenly remember someone, and I could say, "Yes, I sent them one." Usually they are great at gift-giving and they sign my name, but they are the ones who know what to buy and can drive to the store and buy it (I have been broke for so long), so I don't feel like a very big part of that process. This year it felt more like we were all a team.

That was nice, but it is also not the reason I am telling the story. Other posts have talked about the importance of remembering people, and that we can get help with that, and the importance of staying open to inspiration. That is not new.

What has come to me more this year is how much need there is. 

1.84 million people have died from COVID, including 351,000 in the United States. Blink, and it will go up.

That doesn't just mean that there are many people in mourning, often without being able to go through some of the usual goodbye rituals. It also means that emergency rooms have long waits, and even if you would be better off admitted into the hospital there might not be room for you, and non-emergency but still important surgeries are being postponed.

It means many people who have survived are still not truly well.

It means people are worried about money, and the people not having their work hours interrupted are likely in danger performing their job, even when there is not someone bullying them about masks and social distancing.

It means that isolation is greater than ever, and there are cumulative little losses that are impossible to tally.

You have needs, but you are also needed. Notice that.

Answers will come, and it will bring you joy.