I’ve been thinking a lot about my daddy lately.
Not because of Parkinson’s. Not because life looks different than it did a few months ago. But because I’ve finally realized there was something he spent the last forty years teaching me that I didn’t even know I was learning.
It had nothing to do with ministry. Nothing to do with Haiti. Nothing to do with fundraising. It had to do with the things we keep.
Dad grew up in one of those generations whose childhood stories become slightly more treacherous every time they’re told.
You know the kind…
Barefoot.
Through three feet of snow.
Uphill.
Both ways.
And if memory serves him correctly, his only winter coat was stitched together from an old potato sack. (I’m about eighty percent sure he made up that last part.)
But there is another story from his childhood that has always stayed with me: Dad couldn’t wait for the mail.
Most days there wasn’t anything addressed to him. The cards and letters belonged to my grandma and grandpa, but after they finished reading them, they would hand them over to Dad. He couldn’t afford posters or magazine subscriptions, so those cards became the decorations on his bedroom wall.
Christmas was one of his favorite times of the year because the cards were shinier, brighter, and far more plentiful. And because this is Larry Owen we’re talking about, he didn’t simply tape them wherever they happened to fit.
Then by size.
Then arranged them into his own Christmas design.
When you only have a few pennies in your pocket, every one of them matters. A stamp meant giving up candy. It meant giving up something you wanted so you could remind someone else they mattered.
Long after the envelope had been opened and the words had been read, the card was still there. He could look at it again the next day, move it to a better spot on the wall, reorganize the entire display if another red one arrived, and remember that someone, somewhere, had thought about him.
I don’t think my dad ever outgrew that little boy.
For most of my life, I assumed his attachment to cards was simply another symptom of being born before remote controls, online banking, and the ability to ask your refrigerator whether you need milk.
But digital kindness lives in a crowded neighborhood.
Emails arrive beside bills, problems in Haiti, family questions in the States, meeting requests, newsletters, password resets, and messages from genuine people who all deserve an answer “when you get a chance.”
Can I be honest?
Sometimes I avoid opening my inbox. Not because I don’t care… but because I do.
Every unread email represents a real person who deserves a response that’s been thought through… not just thought about. Some days, just watching that unread number climb is enough to make my heart beat a little faster because I know there are people waiting who deserve the best version of me.
…and some days, that’s the very version I can’t seem to find.
And some days… I’ve simply run out of thoughtful.
A card doesn’t do that.
It doesn’t arrive with a notification demanding to be cleared. It doesn’t show the sender that you opened it and then failed to respond for six days. It doesn’t begin an endless exchange where you thank someone for thanking you, and then they thank you for acknowledging their thank-you until both people quietly agree to stop.
A card simply arrives. You can read it when you’re ready. Set it beside your chair. Tuck it into your Bible. Tape it to the wall. Pick it up again on a difficult day and receive the same words without owing anyone an immediate response.
A card doesn’t demand your attention. It keeps its encouragement until you’re ready to receive it.
I think that is what my dad understood long before I did. A card is not necessary. In fact, sometimes the card and postage cost nearly as much as the five-dollar gift card tucked inside it. Financially, it makes very little sense.
Emotionally, it makes perfect sense.
Someone chose something unnecessary because they wanted their kindness to become tangible. They wanted you to have more than a passing message on a screen. They wanted you to have something you could keep.
That is probably why handwritten cards became part of me too.
I was in second grade when I started helping Mom and Dad stuff newsletters into envelopes and write thank-you notes to the people who sacrificed so our family could serve in Haiti. I didn’t realize it then, but Dad was teaching me that gratitude should leave evidence behind.
People tell me all the time, “Jody, you really don’t have to send a handwritten thank-you card.” They’re probably right. It would certainly be faster to send an email, and there is a very real possibility the recipient would prefer not to decipher my handwriting.
But when someone has chosen to sacrifice for us, I still want my gratitude to cost me something too. A few minutes. A card. A stamp. The effort of beginning again when I misspell a word or discover that my six-sentence thought has somehow outgrown a four-inch card.
Gratitude should never be more convenient than generosity.
Maybe that is why I’ve been thinking so much about cards lately. Right now, Dad is living in a room with walls so blank, the place feels less like a living space and more like a personal challenge aimed directly at me. There was nothing wrong with the room. It simply didn’t look like Larry Owen lived there.
As many of you know, Dad has lived with Parkinson’s for what feels like a decade. Somehow, it still didn’t stop him from spending two months in Haiti earlier this year, because apparently Parkinson’s had not yet received the memo that Larry Owen does not retire gracefully.
After returning to the States in May, though, his legs finally stopped cooperating. The strength he needs to stand and walk became less dependable, and Dad is now staying at Sayre Christian Village while a wonderfully patient physical therapy team works with him.
Some days, he can stand and take a few steps. Other days, his legs stage an act of insubordination so complete that even a former Army military policeman can’t restore order.
Still, Dad is Dad. He has already made friends, passed out little Jesus figurines, and distributed enough Tootsie Rolls to establish his own unofficial outreach program.
Nothing opens the door to spiritual conversation quite like a little Sweet Jesus with a Tootsie Roll chaser.
Dad may be the resident, but Mom is definitely the mayor.
Mom apparently clocked in on her first day. I don’t remember anyone giving her a name badge, but every resident smiles when she walks down the hall, and nearly every staff member already has a funny story to tell about her. I assume Human Resources handled the paperwork while we were still in Haiti. 😂
She is already playing the piano and leading worship on Sundays, helping a nearly blind woman during bingo, and keeping track of who has visitors, who doesn’t, who is having a good day, and who is having a bad one. Naturally, she also knows everyone’s entire life story.
The first time we went to visit Dad, I assumed we would walk in, say hello, and spend the afternoon with him. Nope. Mom stopped at nearly every door along the way and walked right in as though she owned the place.
They smiled and nodded with the polite confidence of people who clearly remembered absolutely none of those conversations. Meanwhile, Mom could tell me where they grew up, how many grandchildren they had, and which family member had visited most recently.
It took us almost fifteen minutes to reach Dad’s room. It felt less like walking through a rehab facility and more like trick-or-treating, except Mom was the one handing out the candy while introducing our entire family at every stop. I kept feeling like I should apologize for barging into people’s rooms, but they smiled when they saw her.
More than one resident quietly told us some version of the same thing:“Your mom is the only visitor I regularly see.”
Suddenly, Mom’s hallway rounds looked a little less like collecting everyone’s business and a lot more like the ministry we’ve always believed in: making sure the unseen are seen, the unheard are heard, and no one feels forgotten.
The setting may have changed. Their ministry didn’t end.
It simply moved down a different hallway.
There is still one thing I can’t buy for Dad’s room.
I can add lights, shelves, bears, Scripture, family pictures, and enough chocolate-chip-cookie fragrance to make the night nurse bring her paperwork into Dad’s room. But I can’t manufacture the thing those childhood cards gave him: tangible reminders that someone was thinking about him.
Dad has always taped his birthday and Christmas cards to the wall, so naturally I have already hung a lighted vine with tiny clips waiting to be filled. According to Mom, who has now thoroughly inspected nearly every room on the hallway, no one else has a glowing card display. Yet.
Would you send Dad a card? Buy one. Make one. Let your children draw one. Write a long note or simply sign your name. The words do not have to be profound. The card itself says:
You mattered enough for me to send something you could keep.
Please send cards to:
Larry Owen
P.O. Box 516
Versailles, KY 40383
We will hang every one on his lighted vine and share a picture as the wall begins to fill.
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