Do you love postcards? 

I do. I love receiving them. I love sending them. Mostly I am bad at that second part and end up with a stack of unwritten cards in one of those little paper bags that I’ll rediscover months after a trip. But I still love them. 

My sister Kirby always sent postcards. From trips to see friends, trips to see strangers and strange places. She’d send them even from her home, which I suppose made sense, too, because her home was often somewhere far away. Every now and then, I open up a book or a box or an envelop tucked into a file and I find one of these postcards, a hidden little treasure. 

It just occurred to me why she was so good at postcard sending and how she managed to do it so often. Her messages were always succinct. Simple. “Sending love from ___!” “This made me think of you!” etc. 

My efforts to send a bunch of postcards have always been tripped up by the compulsion to pen a detailed message about what I’ve been doing, where I’ve been, what I’ve seen and eaten and felt. 

Kirby understood that the postcard is meant to do all the talking, the message is understood, and the Magic is in the simple experience of receiving this 3×5″ note from somewhere, anywhere, with her distinctive signature at the end. 

A few days ago, a friend of mine asked me if I believed in signs. And then she told me this:

The night before, she was responding to a Facebook post on which I’d commented, and her phone autocorrected a completely unrelated word to “Kirby.” 

That’s all. 

It could have just been a digital glitch. But my friend chose to believe it was a sign, and so do I. Like when my due date was on the anniversary of Kirby’s death, or when we were trying to name our new baby and a name blogger suggested “Kirby.” More signs. 

And it occurs to me–Kirby is still sending postcards from whatever adventure she’s on now. We must stay open to receiving them.