HeroicStories

Restoring faith in humanity - one story at a time

Restoring Faith in Humanity...
One Story at a Time.
  • Home
  • Samples
    • Call Me Grandpa
    • Hurting Hands
    • Marshmallows and White Hoods
    • Secondhand Sight
    • When We Woke
  • Podcast
  • FAQ
    • Why Are All The Stories Old?
    • How Can I Help?
    • How do I change my email address?
    • I Didn’t Get The Confirmation Email for my Subscription
    • I missed an issue, can you resend it?
    • Can I Link to a HeroicStories Story?
    • May I re-publish this HeroicStories story?
    • Unsubscribe me!
    • Why did I stop getting HeroicStories?
    • More…
  • Submissions
  • Books
  • About
    • Our Manifesto
    • The HeroicStories Podcast
    • Comments
    • Story Submissions
    • The HeroicStories Team
    • Contact
«
»

Just Throw it Away

by Marlie Griffin
Washington, USA

Just Throw it Away

In May 1988 my father died of a heart attack. Because I hadn’t seen him or spoken with him in a while, his sudden death was even more of a blow. I was left to wonder if he had known how much I loved him, or if he had continued to love me.

The only possession I had that belonged to him was a handkerchief with his initials. I asked relatives for pictures, anything from his life, and received a few very kind responses — some old photos from a cousin and stories from my uncles. Still, I had little to remind me of the funny, loving man who was my dad.

Just after Thanksgiving 2005, I received an email message from a small college in Ohio I attended in 1975. Rather than give my address away to a man from my home town who was trying to get in touch with me, they agreed to forward the message. Here’s what it said:

“I am trying to locate a 1975 alumnus of Otterbein College. I have encountered a small cache of personal mementos of her father’s that I would like to provide to her if she’s interested in having them. Could you please forward her this message and give her my email address?”

Reading the message, I burst into tears. How could someone have something that belonged to my father so many years after he had died? What was it? I replied immediately and began checking my computer every hour hoping for a reply. It came three days later.

“My name is David. Quite a few years ago I attended an auction for unclaimed goods at a storage facility. A file cabinet I purchased had a fair amount of stuff in it; the auctioneer said just throw the contents in the trash. Most of it was clearly not of much value. One of the files, however, had more personal stuff in it which I could not see simply discarding. I also noted an envelope with a return address. I thought I’d just hold the contents and attempt to find the sender (you). I tried to find you, but failed. So the stuff got squirreled away and forgotten about. I recently rediscovered it when I was cleaning out my own junk, and wondered again about locating someone who might want to have it.”

Today, a box arrived containing my father’s navy papers, pictures of him, pictures of me, my sisters, my family, father’s day cards and a newspaper clipping from 1969 that my father had saved, about how time can slip through our fingers and we can lose things that matter to us.

How many people would have kept the contents of a file cabinet all those years? How many people would have insisted on sending them at their own expense? Thank you, David, for caring — and for letting me know that through it all, Dad loved me.

Originally published as HeroicStories #657 on March 29, 2006
Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:16 — 3.5MB)

Filed Under: HeroicStories

line

Note: HeroicStories aims to be a place of positive energy in what sometimes feels like an increasingly negative world. Our goal is to highlight good things done by good people that make the world a better place.

To that end your comments are not only welcome but encouraged. However, comments that simply find fault or otherwise complain about some aspect of a story will not be published. There's simply no need to find fault here - there are plenty of places on the internet for those discussions if you really feel the need to go negative.

Instead, look for the good. It really is everywhere.

line

Comments

  1. Stanley R Roelker says

    January 15, 2021 at 8:59 am

    Very touching story…………..I bet it swelled the ladies heart with her father’s personal stuff, her. especially if he saved letters from her. You could say “his love was reaching out from the grave”
    Unfortunately, looking into the future, maybe……paper letters will become less frequent and all those feeling will feel for each other will be lost on the lousy internet.

    Reply
  2. Kaye Maserang says

    January 15, 2021 at 3:51 pm

    True! I know that my mother saved every greeting card that she received from relatives and her many friends. It was a big job cleaning them out after she died. and she left many photo albums of paper pictures. Now, I send e-cards to my family and friends. And I hardly ever use my digital camera.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

Receive your FREE copies of 

HeroicStories starting now! 

 We respect your email privacy.

Subscriber Counter

 

Most Recent Stories:

  • He Chooses to Do
  • The Man Who Cares
  • Without Regret
  • I Want Performance
  • In an Instant

Most Popular Stories:

  • Samples A few examples of what you'll find in HeroicStories: ...
  • Unexpected Return A missing cell phone is unexpectedly returned in the Ho...
  • The Amazing Doctor When a baby is born with multiple problems one amazing...
  • One Person Can Make A Difference A famous star steps up to help entertain some rambuncti...
  • Call Me Grandpa by Rick Norton California, USA Dad's life seemed ty...

Archives:

Site Search

© Copyright 2021 HeroicStories · All Rights Reserved - No part of this website may be republished without written consent of the publisher.

HeroicStories is a publication of, and webhosting and mailing services are provided by, Puget Sound Software, LLC and Ask Leo!