A Note on the Door

At a recent dinner with a small group of friends, one of the guys surprised us with a gift. He handed each of the six of us a book he had just finished and thought we’d enjoy. I left that night thinking about how something like that — a little planning, a little effort — can leave such a lasting imprint on the people around you.

I loved the book and finished it within the week. When I went to thank my friend, I picked up my phone to text him — and stopped. A text felt too easy. It would get swallowed up in the hundreds of other messages flowing through our phones every day. An email? Slightly better, but with an equally short shelf life.

So instead, I sat down and wrote him a handwritten note. Old school. It didn’t take long, and it was short, but that was the point — I wanted to match his thoughtful effort with mine. We all know the feeling of opening the mailbox and finding something that isn’t a bill or a flyer. There’s a small spark to it. So why don’t we do more of it? Especially now, when texts and emails have lost so much of their weight.

The best note I ever received was one I never saw coming.

I was a senior in high school, in my last year of football. We opened the season by beating our rival, and after the game and a quick hello with my parents, I headed off to the postgame dance. When I got home around midnight and walked into our quiet, dark house, there was a note taped to the door. It was from my Dad. It said: GREAT GAME GREG, “33.”

To understand why that stopped me cold, you need to understand my Dad.

A dairy farmer and the father of six, he led his family the only way he knew how: by example. His love wasn’t spoken — it was shown. He showed up to football games and wrestling matches, to award banquets and to church every Sunday with my mom and his pack of kids in tow. “I love you” wasn’t part of our vocabulary, and that was fine. We felt it anyway.

But writing a note? That had never happened. So you can imagine what it felt like to find one.

That was almost forty years ago, and I can still feel the pride that hit me the moment I read it. I saved that note. I still have it today. My dad has since passed, and it’s the best keepsake I have from my childhood. Every Father’s Day, I take it out and look at it — a few words in his handwriting, taped to a door in a dark house, waiting for me to come home.

I’ve tried to carry that forward. I’ve left notes for my two daughters over the years, and a couple of them are still stuck to their bathroom mirrors — which tells me everything I need to know about the staying power of a handwritten word.

In return, they’ve left notes for me. This past Christmas, I gave each a set of personalized, embossed note cards to encourage the habit. I know they’ll use them with friends and family.

A well-timed text can still mean something, especially when it’s out of the blue and someone just needs to know you’re thinking of them. But there’s nothing quite like a handwritten note — the kind you can hold, fold, and keep in a drawer for forty years. The kind that’s still waiting on the door when you walk in.