My mother left my dad while pregnant. My dad used to send me birthday cards every year. I was glad to receive a card from him with a few bucks, acknowledging I was alive and that he did one day want to see me.
Around 14-15, I learned that… he’d been sending those cards to the wrong address for over a decade. Mom had moved us twice without telling him. The envelopes piled up at an old apartment, returned to sender, then forwarded to a PO box he kept just in case. He never stopped trying.
I found the stack when I tracked him down—hundreds of cards, crisp bills still inside, messages growing shorter each year: “Happy 5th, buddy.” “Turned 10 yet?” “Still hoping.” By my 15th, it was just “I’m here.”
He wasn’t absent. He was erased.
I called. He cried so hard he couldn’t speak. We met the next week. He brought the latest card—number 16—already signed. Inside: “See you soon.”
That day, I got my dad back. And every birthday since, the card comes with coffee, not cash. Some gifts are worth more than money.
