"Thanks for making my mom cry"

Erick Keskey is a Customer Connect Coordinator for the Northland District. He was in Sparta, WI, to make a kickoff presentation to the local city carriers.

Sparta is also the home of the Fort McCoy military base.

Dressed in his carrier uniform, he had loaded his car and stepped back into the hotel to grab a cup of coffee before heading out. He turned from the coffee pot to leave, and there was a soldier, dressed in fatigues, holding out his hand. As the two shook hands, the soldier said “Thanks for making my mom cry.”

Keskey was understandably confused. He explained that he did not work at the local Post Office, and if he had ever made someone cry he was pretty sure that he would have remembered it. The soldier smiled and said “it wasn’t really you, and my mom doesn’t live here, either.” He went on to explain how a letter carrier delivered the gifts he had sent from Iraq on Christmas Eve. His mom had dropped to her knees on the living room floor and cried tears of joy.

“I was dumbfounded,” Keskey says. “A person who put his life on the line, living halfway around the world, for more than a year and he was thanking me? I got a little choked up and told him that I should be the one offering thanks. It was one of my proudest moments as a postal employee.

“So my wish is that every one of us has the opportunity to make someone’s mom cry.”