Invitations are a joy and essential

Growing up, my grandfather lived with my family before moving to my aunt’s house for his final few years. There wasn’t much to occupy his day other than seeing us off to school and work in the morning and welcoming us home that evening.

As far as I know, the lone activity every day took place at 10 a.m. when he began his slow half-mile walk from our house to the town’s post office, where all mail was delivered. The chances of him receiving a piece of mail specifically for him were slim, yet he looked forward to turning the dial on the small rectangular mailbox every day with the hopes of finding something with his name on it. Maybe there would be a letter from the government about his pension; even better would be a card from his daughter with an update on her life and always an update about the weather; but the best was finding an invitation, whether to a friend’s birthday party or a family reunion.

Arguably, the best piece of mail we can find in our mailboxes is an invitation. A phone call from a friend inviting you to coffee is a lot better than yet another call from the school office that your child is behind on their lunch bill yet again. Or a text from your spouse asking you to lunch beats the texts about yet another bill that is due.

We like being invited. We like being included. We like being asked to do something.

Additionally, we like being asked for our thoughts. We like being asked for our ideas. We like being involved, especially to make a difference.

Not all invitations are about doing an activity. Many invitations are to begin a discussion.

It may be to catch up with a friend who just returned from overseas and you want to hear about their vacation. It may be to learn more about a topic such as a book that has many impacts on your community. Or it may be to start the process for things we know we need to do - but manage to keep putting off - such as long-term planning.

Ultimately, it is all about the invitation, an invitation to start the discussion.

This week, Todd Mekelburg and Jim Gustafson from the Nebraska Community Foundation visited McCook and Southwest Nebraska, sharing how we can make the invitation to talk about not-so-easy topics. From planned gifts to wills and funeral plans, we know this is something we should talk about with our spouses, with our children, and with our financial advisors. If we don’t talk about it and if we don’t ultimately do something about it, the decisions will be made by others, most likely the government. And then you, your family, and your community end up on the losing end.

We need those invitations to talk about how necessary it is to plan the future, the future for ourselves, for our families, and for our communities.

Invitations can be joyful, especially if it is to welcome a new baby at a baby shower or a newly married couple at a wedding. But invitations can also be essential to start the discussion about what we want our community to look like generations from now and what we can do to make that happen.

Whether it is an invitation for dinner just to share a good meal and a laugh or an invitation to a fellow community member about what we could do to make our town even better, we need to be willing to reach out to others. It is as simple as an invitation.

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One final story about mail delivery. Kids love receiving mail, probably because they just look for anything with their name and hand over the bills to their parents.

Going to the mailbox was one of my kids’ favorite activities as they grew up, despite knowing that it was unlikely there would be anything with their names inside. It was the joy of possibilities…there could be an invitation to a friend’s birthday party or a card from grandma, likely with a dollar bill or two.

My oldest son came home midway through his kindergarten year of school, giddy that he had finally memorized his address as part of a school assignment. As we walked out to the mailbox to retrieve that day’s mail, he repeated the address over and over, “rural route 3, box 80;” “rural route 3, box 80;” “rural route 3, box 80.” He was proud as a peacock that he had mastered this new skill.

We pulled the letters from the mailbox and there was a letter from the government, assigning new addresses to assist emergency personnel in finding our location. From now on, we were to use “38575 Dr. 713.”

That was a long walk back to the house that day, knowing he was starting all over.