When I was small, my dad used to send me greeting cards from work, just 
for the hell of it. They were usually funny, or sweet, or sweetly funny. The message was the same, “Hey kid, I’m thinking of ya!”
Dad was never a very demonstrable man—except when he was angry—so this always struck me as somewhat odd. When I quizzed my friends about it, they thought it was strange too.
“It’s not your birthday or anything?”
“Nope.”
“And he just sends you…cards?”
“Yup.”
“Weird.”
Weird it may have been, but I always looked forward to getting the mail because I never knew when I might get another “just cuz” card. It felt good to know he was thinking of me, even when he wasn’t around. At that age, I really didn’t know what Dad did at work, only that he left in the morning and came home every night, reliable as a Swiss watch. To my childish mind, life was good. There was food on the table, clothes on my back, a warm roof over my head, and absolutely nothing to need. I didn’t understand until much later how hard a trick that is to pull off.
