Mail

I used to like getting the mail. Sometimes there would be a letter. Sometimes a magazine that I could look forward to reading. Sometimes an interesting catalogue with lots of pictures.

How things have changed. Once in a while I get a letter and that's always nice. Magazines come and are set aside, never to be opened. Ditto the catalogues. Sometimes I give the catalogues to the babies, because they like looking at the pictures.

We also get bills. Bills for this house. Bills for the Boulder house. Bills for our house in Canon City. Bills for Clifford's Boulder house. Bills for Clifford's Alma house.

But the main thing we get is requests for money. Almost all of these are addressed to Clifford, our dear friend and former neighbor who died in September. We get his mail now and all the organizations to which he used to give money have acquired what they think is his new address.

Clifford typically gets 3 or 4 of these letters a day. EVERY DAY. Sometimes more.

I used to just toss these in the recycling bin, but I've gotten smart (thanks Barbara!) and have started writing back to the organizations to tell them that Clifford is deceased. Last weekend I sat down with a pile of envelopes and when I was done I had 17 letters to mail. I thought I was caught up, but today I had another huge stack to go through. I've actually run out of stamps, so I'm only sending back the ones that provide a postage-paid envelope -- just 5 today.

Clifford gets requests for money from lots of animal charities, conservation charities, PETA. He also hears from the National Rifle Association and other hunting groups, various medical charities, and many Catholic organizations. Somehow those are the worst. In addition to asking for money they also ask you to send in prayer requests. Just seems wrong to me. They send religious pictures, cheap jewelry, nickels. So many of these groups send nickels. What is it with the nickels? I just keep them. A charity helping blind people sent him a little miniature book light. I kept that -- it's useful.

We can't give Clifford's money to these groups because his estate isn't settled yet. So I know I'm doing the right thing, writing "Mr Moser is deceased. Please take him off your mailing list" on form after form after form. And I don't want to send my own check and get on these mailing lists. I just can't cope with what's on my plate already. Still, I feel bad. Who will give $10 to save alley cats, big cats, wolves, abused farm animals, and abused sheep in Australia, not to mention elderly nuns who need medical help? There are a lot of good causes out there and several of them have lost a good friend.