Speaker 1: Hus was to be hers. The post office in the
Speaker 1: village of Ashworth was a small stone building with a
Speaker 1: blue door and a bell that rang when any one
Speaker 1: walked in. It had been there for as long as
Speaker 1: any one could remember, and Eda had been behind the
Speaker 1: counter for forty of those years. She knew the rhythm
Speaker 1: of the mail the way a musician knows a song.
Speaker 1: Monday mornings brought the most letters because people wrote on
Speaker 1: weekends when they had time. Wednesdays were quiet, Fridays brought
Speaker 1: packages because people liked to send things for the weekend.
Speaker 1: And every day, without fail, old mister Finch would come
Speaker 1: in at exactly ten o'clock to check for a letter
Speaker 1: from his daughter in Canada. Eda handled each piece of
Speaker 1: mail as if it were something fragile and pressure, which
Speaker 1: in a way it was. A letter was a small
Speaker 1: act of faith. Some one had sat down, taken a
Speaker 1: pen and decided that another person needed to hear from them.
Speaker 1: That was a kind of love, Ida thought, even when
Speaker 1: the words were ordinary. She knew of the people of
Speaker 1: Ashworth by their mail. Missus Patterson received letters from a
Speaker 1: man who was not her husband, and Eda never said
Speaker 1: a word about it, because the letters were sealed and
Speaker 1: private and none of her business. Young Danny Cooper got
Speaker 1: a package every month from his grandmother in Cornwall, filled
Speaker 1: with short bread and hand knitted socks. The Reverend received
Speaker 1: thick envelopes from the dioceses that always made him sigh.
Speaker 1: And then there was the letter that arrived on a
Speaker 1: Thursday in November, addressed to no one. It was a
Speaker 1: plain envelope, white and unmarked, with no return address. The
Speaker 1: name on the front simply said the person who needs them.
Speaker 1: Ida held it up to the light, but she could
Speaker 1: not see through it. She turned it over nothing. She
Speaker 1: placed it on the counter and looked at it for
Speaker 1: a long time. The bell on the door rang, and
Speaker 1: missus Chen came in to send a parcel to her
Speaker 1: son in London. And i'da wrap a it carefully and
Speaker 1: weighed it and stamped it and chatted about the weather.
Speaker 1: But her eyes kept returning to the plain, white envelope.
Speaker 1: At closing time, when the last customer had gone and
Speaker 1: the bell had rung its final ring, Ida picked up
Speaker 1: the envelope and opened it. She told herself it was
Speaker 1: her duty as the postmistress to know what came through
Speaker 1: her office. Inside was a single sheet of paper fold
Speaker 1: at once. The handwriting was small and careful, as if
Speaker 1: the writer had taken great pains to be legible. Dear stranger,
Speaker 1: the letter read, I do not know your name, but
Speaker 1: I know that some days are harder than others. Some
Speaker 1: mornings you wake up and the weight of the world
Speaker 1: presses down on your chest like a stone. You wonder
Speaker 1: if any one notices you, Wonder if any one cares.
Speaker 1: I want you to know that I care. I have
Speaker 1: been where you are. I have felt the lowliness that
Speaker 1: wraps around you like a cold wind, and I want
Speaker 1: to tell you that it passes, not quickly, not easily,
Speaker 1: but it passes. The sun comes out again, the birds sing.
Speaker 1: You find a reason to smile, even if it is
Speaker 1: a small one. Please take care of yourself. You matter
Speaker 1: more than you know. I'da read the letter three times.
Speaker 1: Then she placed it back in its envelope and put
Speaker 1: it in the drawer beneath the counter where she kept
Speaker 1: stamps and straying and other useful things. She thought about
Speaker 1: it all evening. She thought about it while she made
Speaker 1: her tea and sat in her arm chair and watched
Speaker 1: the fire. She thought about the people who came into
Speaker 1: her post office every day, and she wondered which of
Speaker 1: them might need to hear those words. The next morning,
Speaker 1: she made a copy of the letter. She was not
Speaker 1: sure why, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: She placed the copy in a new envelope and addressed
Speaker 1: it to mister Finch, because he came in every day
Speaker 1: at ten o'clock and sometimes his eyes looked tired. Mister
Speaker 1: Finch came in at ten o'clock as always, he checked
Speaker 1: his box. There was no letter from his daughter. His
Speaker 1: shoulder sagged just slightly. Ida watched him from behind the counter.
Speaker 1: Mister Finch, She said, I have something for you. He
Speaker 1: looked up, surprised for me. A letter. She said, some
Speaker 1: one left it here for you. She held out the envelope.
Speaker 1: Mister Finch took it with trembling hands. He opened it
Speaker 1: and read. Ida watched his face change. The tiredness did
Speaker 1: not disappear, but something else appeared alongside it, a softness,
Speaker 1: a lightness. His eyes grew bright. Who sent this, he asked,
Speaker 1: I do not know. Ida said it was left here anonymously.
Speaker 1: Mister Finch folded the letter carefully and placed it in
Speaker 1: his breast pocket. Over his heart. Thank you, Ida, he said,
Speaker 1: I did not know I needed this. He left the
Speaker 1: post office with a straighter step than he had come
Speaker 1: in with, and Ida felt something warm spread through her chest.
Speaker 1: Over the following weeks, Ida continued to make copies. She
Speaker 1: sent the letter to missus Patterson, who had been looking
Speaker 1: worried lately. She sent one to young Danny Cooper, who
Speaker 1: was struggling with exams. She sent one to the reverend
Speaker 1: who had mentioned in a sermon that even priests sometimes
Speaker 1: felt alone. Each time she watched the person receive the letter,
Speaker 1: each time she saw something shift in their face. Not
Speaker 1: a dramatic change, not a miracle, just a small lifting,
Speaker 1: like a cloud moving aside to let the sum through.
Speaker 1: She began to wonder about the original writer who had
Speaker 1: written those words, who had walked into her post office
Speaker 1: on that Thursday in November and left the letter for
Speaker 1: a stranger. She checked the security footage, but the camera
Speaker 1: had been pointing at the wall for months and no
Speaker 1: one had thought to fix it. It did not matter,
Speaker 1: she decided. The letter had done its work. Whoever had
Speaker 1: written it had understood something important that people sometimes needed
Speaker 1: to hear, that they were not alone and that the
Speaker 1: hearing could come from anywhere, even a plain white envelope.
Speaker 1: In a small village post office, Ida kept the original
Speaker 1: letter in her desk drawer. On difficult days, when the
Speaker 1: mail was heavy and the bills were demanding, and the
Speaker 1: world felt too loud, she took it out and read
Speaker 1: it again, and every time the words settled over her
Speaker 1: like a warm blanket. I want you to know that
Speaker 1: I care. Winter came to Ashworth. The stone walls of
Speaker 1: the post office turned cold. Frost formed on the blue
Speaker 1: door each morning, and Ida had to scrape it off
Speaker 1: before opening. The days were short and the nights were long,
Speaker 1: and the mail came in the gray half light of
Speaker 1: early morning. But the letters continued, not just the ordinary letters,
Speaker 1: the bills, and the cards and the packages. Other letters
Speaker 1: began to appear, playing white envelopes with no return address,
Speaker 1: addressed to the person who needs this. Eda was not
Speaker 1: the only one writing them any more. She smiled when
Speaker 1: she found the first one, left on the counter by
Speaker 1: someone who had come and gone while she was in
Speaker 1: the back room sorting parcels. She opened it and read
Speaker 1: a different handwriting a different voice, but the same spirit.
Speaker 1: Dear stranger, you are stronger than you think. The hard
Speaker 1: days do not last forever. Keep going. The handwriting was
Speaker 1: a bit shaky, as if the writer had been nervous.
Speaker 1: Eda imagined an old person, or perhaps a young one,
Speaker 1: someone who had felt the weight and wanted to share
Speaker 1: the remedy. She made a copy and sent it to
Speaker 1: missus Chen, whose son had not written in weeks. More
Speaker 1: letters appeared. Some were long, some were short. Some were
Speaker 1: written in careful cursive, some in hurried print. One was
Speaker 1: written in colored pencil, as if by a child. Each
Speaker 1: one said, in its own way, you are not alone.
Speaker 1: Each one carried a small, quiet light. Eda began to
Speaker 1: keep a special box beneath the counter, a wooden box
Speaker 1: with a hinged lid, where she stored the letters that
Speaker 1: were left for strangers. She read them sometimes in the
Speaker 1: evening after closing, sitting in the blue light of the
Speaker 1: post office with her tea growing cold. The words filled
Speaker 1: her with a feeling she could not puite name. It
Speaker 1: was not happiness exactly, It was something deeper. It was
Speaker 1: the feeling that the world, for all its noise and
Speaker 1: rush and worry, was still capable of small, unexpected kindness.
Speaker 1: Spring arrived the frost on the blue door gave way
Speaker 1: to do. The hedge outside the post office bloomed with
Speaker 1: white flowers, and the birds returned to the eaves. Mister
Speaker 1: Finch's daughter finally wrote a long letter full of news
Speaker 1: and photographs, and Ida handed it to him with a
Speaker 1: smile that she could not contain. See. She said she
Speaker 1: was just busy. Mister Finch laughed, a sound Ida had
Speaker 1: not heard in months. Yes, he said, I suppose she was.
Speaker 1: That evening, Ida sat in her arm chair with the
Speaker 1: wooden box on her lap. She took out the original letter,
Speaker 1: the first one, the one that had started everything. She
Speaker 1: read it one more time. Please take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: You matter more than you know. She folded it gently
Speaker 1: and placed it back in the box. Then she closed
Speaker 1: the lid, carried the box to the shelf above the fireplace,
Speaker 1: and put the kettle on for tea. Outside, the evening
Speaker 1: was soft, and the sky was turning the color of roses,
Speaker 1: and somewhere in the village a dog barked and children laughed,
Speaker 1: and the world went on as it always did, carrying
Speaker 1: its small quiet gifts from one person to another. Ida
Speaker 1: sipped her tea and listened to the silence and the
Speaker 1: silence was kind,