“No, Ma’am. We can’t send this one. “
The clerk behind the post office window shook his head as he handed the envelope back to me.
“But it’s just fan mail for a young girl,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter, Ma’am. It’s the war and all. There’s a war.”
It was the last of a few dozen or so envelopes of all shapes and sizes that we had checked for proper postage. They come from all over the world. Some are just a scrawled note:
“Please can you send me a photo?”
Others are elaborate collections of photos of me downloaded from the internet or purchased through a fan site. There is also some cuckoo stuff. I have been sent bathing suits with instructions to photograph myself in them and return the disposable camera. I have been asked for pictures of my feet. I have been sent Bibles and colorful cards. There have been letters from prison admonishing me about my career choices.
“In my opinion, you shoulda stuck to film and not bothered with the television shows.”
Yes, there are people whose career choices have led them to the hoosegow who feel confident in their ability to tell me where I have gone wrong in mine.
The young folks I hire to help me are there to read through the letters and requests.
“Be on the lookout for suicide.” I always remind them. Twice in the last 30 years, I have received a note from a young person
(in both cases a girl), who wrote to tell me that they intended to kill themselves. Problems at school, an overburdened parent, and certainty that they would never fit in were driving them to desperation. In both cases, I was able to locate the girls and their parents and encourage them to get help.
“This guy was suicidal at one point, but he’s ok with being gay now and he’s getting married … wants to know if you can come to the wedding?”
Alex takes his job seriously.
“Where is it?”
“Michigan.”
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
“Then no. I guess not. But I am glad he’s okay. Let’s write him a note.”
I try to be thorough, but I am not always prompt, and sometimes mistakes are made. There is a Fed-Ex envelope full of photos that I signed according to request and then somehow sealed it and neither my young helper nor I could find a shred of input as to where it should be addressed. I feel bad about that one, but trash was searched, the envelope opened and reclosed and no trace of its original sender could be found, so it sits abandoned in a drawer waiting for whoever sent it to write again.
“Total is $29.18. Do you need stamps?”
“No thanks.” I put my card in to pay. It’s usually between twenty-five and fifty dollars to complete the mission.
Many of the folks who write include no return envelope or postage. Some include a dollar bill or make an attempt to guess how much it will cost for me to send them the materials they requested. It is never the correct amount so the quarterly trip to the post office is made where we go over each one adding the proper fees.
Dear Julia of Russia was just a bit shy of the funds needed to receive her envelope and when we went to add it, the service shut us down. The clerk turned the monitor around for me to see. It read something like this:
“Not authorized to have dealings with this entity.”
I think “Entity is the wrong word and I cannot remember the exact one,” but you get the drift.
Julia has perfect penmanship and truly adept English language skills.
“Dear Mrs. Beth,” (Okay, her opener was a tad off.
“Sincerely and from the bottom of my heart, let me express to you my admiration for your talent and creativity.”
Her words filled the one-page letter on stationery that featured a single rose in the upper right-hand corner. They were effusive and sweet. The show is a spirit guide for her.
There have been quite a few missives from Russia in the last year or so. “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” has finally found its way to the Fatherland. I am glad of this. As our countries weigh their respective powers and flex their respective muscle it is nice to know that a little well-meaning show is making its way into those foreign hearts.
Dear Julia,
I write with apologies that I cannot at this time return your signed photos. I even added an extra one so you would have three but the powers that be will not allow them to be sent.
Your leader is a man who believes in totalism. His “righteous” goal is totalitarian rule over a populace that is uniformly white and fundamentally Christian. Many people have died under his rule and languish today in his prisons. His savage attack on the people of Ukraine, and his war crimes, will live in history as atrocities.
He is deeply unpopular the world over. My leaders in particular are not happy with him right now.
The history of mankind has seen more than its fair share of this sort of thing. It rarely ends well.
Hitler brought the world to a horrific war and imprisoned and murdered countless people in an effort to “purify” the Nordic race and return Germany to religious and ethnic uniformity.
40 million Chinese died under the totalitarian leadership of Mao Zedong, a purist, and zealot who believed he could do no wrong.
As author and psychiatrist Dr. Robert Jay Lifton notes:
“As my work has repeatedly emphasized, it is difficult – perhaps impossible--to kill very large numbers of people except with a claim to virtue.”
They are here in America too …. men who seek absolute power and will justify any action, no matter how harmful or dangerous, to secure their dominance. Like Mr. Putin, they, too, seek to assert white Christian culture as the only relevant governing body.
There are no easy answers. There has never in human history been a simple war.
It feels right now as if there will always be a need to fight for the freedoms and dignity of all peoples regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. It is a fight worth fighting. We can only be defeated if we stop caring, if we stop believing in the goodness of people everywhere.
Thank you for sharing a little bit of your heart with me, Julia, and for your kind words and wishes. These are troubled times for both of our nations and most of the world. I can see your sweet spirit and your high intelligence from across the oceans. I can feel the depth in your soul.
I cannot write to you in letter form, but I can hold great hopes for you and your countrymen.
Peace is the true word of the Lord, and love is all.
I send you love and I will pray for your safety and for peace between our great nations.
But for now, I cannot send the photos…
… with apologies,
Beth
On we go …
Really rings me to tears...
Beautiful, Beth!