The Power of a Note

Garth Callaghan slips a handwritten “napkin note” into the lunchbox of his 14-year-old daughter, Emma, every school day.

He started writing the notes to her when she was in kindergarten. She couldn’t read that well at the time so he used big words and pictures to get his point across.

Garth didn’t get serious about writing the notes until he was diagnosed with cancer. Garth has now been diagnosed with kidney cancer twice and currently lives with prostate cancer. His goal is to write enough notes to give his daughter one per day until she graduates from high school. Just in case he isn’t around to write them. That is about 826 notes.

He gets up every morning early enough to find just the right quote or words of encouragement for her day.

Of course his daughter loves the notes. She says it is great to know that her father is thinking of her. Now that her father has cancer, she knows she can’t take anything for granted.

Here is what I learned from Garth’s story. Most of us won’t see death coming. We won’t have the opportunity to write down all the things we will have wished we had said.

Why does it take a death sentence for us to slow down our life long enough to let someone we love know we are thinking about them? We all know our time on this earth is coming to an end. Our end might be tomorrow or at a ripe old age. We just don’t know.

Do yourself a favor. Don’t risk pushing it off. Take the time to love someone today. Let them know that you care. You never know how many more chances you’ll get.

Image courtesy of https://www.napkinnotesdad.com/