{"id":441,"date":"2014-02-17T09:28:08","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T14:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=441"},"modified":"2014-02-18T06:11:01","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T11:11:01","slug":"gift-grieving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/gift-grieving\/","title":{"rendered":"Gift for the Grieving"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lovelightpower\"<\/a> \u201cI didn\u2019t order anything,\u201d I say to the lady at the Post Office as I sign for a bulging package. \u201cNo name or return address on this. Isn\u2019t that strange?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m curious too now,\u201d she says and offers me a scissor. Opening the plastic envelope, I halfway pull out a belt and two articles of clothing. I hastily sift through the contents for a card. There is none. So I ask her to trace the package. But searching the number on the tracking slip yields nothing more than the name of a small postal unit in West Virginia. \u201cMaybe you have a secret admirer,\u201d she says, as I wonder how to thank the sender.<\/p>\n

When I get home I empty the envelope onto the kitchen counter. The two articles of clothing turn out to be a two-piece bathing suit. I\u2019m squirming because it looks like my size. I rifle through maps of shrines to hike to in Japan, a blank journal, an opened bag of cough drops, a Thai recipe book, \u2026 When I unwrap an expensive I-5 cellphone and two hundred-dollar bills, I throw everything back into the envelope, put the whole thing outside in case it\u2019s a bomb, and call the State Police.<\/p>\n

Four hours later, standing over my counter between the immaculately polished state trooper and my tattooed son in his undershirt, we\u2019re discussing remote detonation devices, secret surveillance cameras, stolen cellphones rigged with porn videos or obscene messages, and anthrax scares. Is the half-used sheet of decongestant pills and container of candy-laxatives really illegal drugs? I\u2019ve landed in the middle of a strange movie involving high tech identity theft and gangland mystery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the strangest thing I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d the trooper says. He inventories each of the twenty items as I suffer hot flashes and chills. From the back of the phone he un-tapes a postcard with a message that begins, \u201cLover.\u201d I recall the recent shout-out on Twitter from my son\u2019s friend, Jon Bones Jones<\/a>, advising his followers to check out my website; within seconds a tweet had come back calling me \u201ca hottie.\u201d Then and now, I cling to my cover:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just a heartbroken grieving <\/a>mother, my kid died<\/a>, I\u2019m a mess, I\u2019m almost 63, no one should want me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you mention you were sick recently?\u201d the trooper asks. \u201cThere\u2019s aspirin and cold remedies, Kleenex, vitamin supplements and a prayer from a temple. There seems to be some cultural thing we don\u2019t understand here. Someone cares about your health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or my sender also knows loss. I take another look at this anonymous care package. At the phone that turns out is not stolen but is locked, unusable, into a TMobile account. At the warm red design on the handmade coaster. I\u2019m still wondering what to make of this gift. But I pass the maps and half the money on to my friend\u2019s son, an exchange student in Japan who needs cash. I start a care package for a friend who just lost her husband.<\/p>\n

And I tape the paper with the\u00a0 prayer for happiness<\/a> to my wall.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I didn’t order anything,” I say to the lady at the Post Office as I sign for a bulging package. “No name or return address on this. Isn’t that strange?” “I’m curious too now,” she says and offers me a scissor. Opening the plastic envelope, I halfway pull out a belt and two articles of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,59,54,55,57,56,62,58],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-anonymous-care-package","tag-comfort-gifts","tag-gifts-for-the-grieving","tag-healing-touch","tag-love-light-and-power-trinity","tag-power-light-love","tag-prayer-for-happiness","tag-sonten-trinity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}