Ben from Virginia

Last Tuesday, we woke up excited for the day to start as our "Un-accompanied Baggage" (our first shipment of goods) was set to arrive at our house. The prospect of filling our empty home up with some of our own things like bedding and kitchen items had us waking up before the alarm even went off. We were told our delivery window was between 11am-3pm so we set out on our anxious wait for the truck to show up. 

We tried to busy ourselves with organizing our limited belongings and playing with the cats. Soon 11:00 came, and noon came, then 1:00--with no truck and no delivery. Every time a diesel car or truck came through our neighborhood, our ears perked and then fell. We were getting more discouraged and frustrated as every hour passed with no delivery. The end of our delivery window of 3pm came and went with sadness and frustration. We called the delivery company and they informed us our boxes were still in the warehouse and would be picked up within two hours. 

I was feeling so defeated and all my excitement that I'd had for our 11 boxes, filled with our own tangible things, was long gone and replaced with frustration and discontent for the delivery company. I felt so angry inside and just wanted to tell them that I had gone so long without those personal items of mine, that waiting two more hours felt like infinity. Ara was sweet and tried to tell me that getting upset wasn't going to make the delivery come faster so I resorted to taking a nap. 

An hour and a half later, a large German moving truck arrived at our new home and unloaded those 11 boxes of our personal items. My smile and excitement was long gone though. I was so angry that they had no idea how long we'd waited for this small shipment of our things. That it took them all day and past the expected time. I'd waited a month and a half for these items, so why did a couple more hours matter? I couldn't justify that thought with all the frustration and anger that had been stewing with the lack of delivery earlier in the day. I know that I can control how I process a situation, that I can choose joy in a situation. But I wasn't choosing joy when they were unloading these precious things of mine. And that made me even more upset with myself. 

The delivery crew finished and Ara and I began opening a few boxes. We found wine glasses, familiar blankets, our bedding and towels--all things I was so excited to unwrap, yet I was still not letting my frustration of the day go. 

We took a break from the unboxing and headed to IKEA, a chance to use some free wi-fi (ours isn't getting installed in our house until Sept. 8th) and re-fuel our bodies at the cafe. On our way home we decided to stop by the Base to check our mailbox. My normal self would have bounded out of the car, ready to check the mail and anxious to see if there were any packages. But that day I still sat sulking and told Ara that I was going to stay in the car. He came back minutes later with a stack of envelopes and showed me one in particular. 

"Who do we know from Virginia?," he asked. I glanced my eyes over to the envelope he had in his hand while I browsed the others he brought. This envelope was addressed to Riley Bartemes and written in a child's handwriting. I was confused as to why someone; a stranger, from Virginia would be sending our cat mail. I answered back to Ara, "I don't know anyone from Virginia." I ripped open the envelope to find the identification tag from Riley's pet carrier that we used to transport her and Newman on the plane rides as we moved from Tacoma to Germany. 

Immediately I held up the tag to Ara and gleefully said, "Someone picked up her ID tag and mailed it to us!" 

Weeks ago, when we were getting our items ready to leave the plane that we took from Baltimore International Airport to Ramstein I noticed that Riley's ID tag was missing from her carrier. After realizing it was gone I had thought to myself, oh it has our address on it so perhaps someone will mail it to us if it's found. But I didn't put too much thought to it as it wasn't that meaningful or expensive, just an identification tag. 

I placed the tag down on my lap and looked further in the envelope and said, "Ara, there's a letter too!" I un-folded this 8 1/2 x 11 white piece of paper and started reading this letter aloud to Ara. In very legible, child's handwriting I started reading this sweet note written personally to our cat, Riley. 

“Dear Riley,
I hope you have had a good trip. I’m not sure exactly when you and your humans traveled through Baltimore, but on July 26 I noticed the most flattering image of you on the ground at the BWI airport!”

I couldn't help the tears that welled up in my eyes as I stopped reading the letter. I looked at Ara and said, "This is so sweet and filled with so much good, there are good people in the world, good little people." The best part of the letter was next and read: 

“Now, you seem to be rather asserting your authority in the picture, so I knew you’d want it back to remind your family who’s in charge. ”

Ara and I both started to laugh and couldn't keep the smiles off our face as I finished reading the letter that from Ben from Virginia wrote. We chatted joyfully the whole drive home about how sweet it was that Ben took the time to write this letter and send us the ID tag. We went on an on about how he hit the nail on the head with his verbiage in describing Riley and her picture. We chuckled multiple times about the candor in his letter that ended with "Good fortune to you and your kingdom." Complete with a signoff on the letter of "humbly." I told Ara as we drove home, "Ben from Virginia just made our day."

By the time we made it back into our driveway I was ready to skip into our house and had pushed away all the bad attitude that I left with earlier. It's funny how the timing of moments like these are. We hadn't checked our mail in several days. We could've easily had that letter sitting there for days and could have opened it any other time. A time when it wouldn't have had the impact on us that it did that day, some big magic. The day that we needed some extra happy in our lives. 

Ben from Virginia did so many things for us on Tuesday. He made us smile from ear to ear where a frown had been placed for most of the day. He gave us giggles when we were stuck in our heads. He showed us there is so much good in this world. And that good is coming from the next generation. He showed us that small acts of kindness really do have an impact on those around you. 

We ended that Tuesday with a smile on our face and thoughts for our letter back to Ben from Virginia written by Riley (and her humans).