When our first child was born in the Winter of 2013, we set up a special email address for notes and memories we wanted to send to her, and we encouraged her grandparents and Godparents to do the same. We subsequently did the same for our other children, not knowing exactly when we would let them in on this cool surprise.

Fast forward 12 years, and I was setting up a login for my daughter so she could safely use the home computer with the proper protections and supervision in place. This was also the perfect time to let her know that we had been working on a gift for her since the day she was born and that she was about to go on an emotional journey. When she opened the email, there were over 100 messages in the inbox, each containing joyful memories, funny videos, cute pictures, and reflections on life’s major milestones.

She was overwhelmed as we read the first few messages out loud together. Hearing the emails that I wrote over a decade ago helped to surface old memories from my earliest days as a father. Her joy was uncontainable, and this already loving and vocal young woman could not stop pouring out her gratitude and affection. It was one of the most connecting moments I’ve ever experienced with her.

It felt like this email idea was the greatest gift we could ever give to our children. What happened next was even more powerful.

While I was at work the next day, she came across an email I had sent to her and the rest of my family when we were just a few weeks into the 2020 shutdown. I had transcribed the entire Forward from a book by Matthew Kelly called Rediscovering Catholicism, in which the author shares a fictitious story about a global pandemic that is threatening to shut down the world and wipe out a large percentage of the population.

The outlook is bleak until scientists identify a gene that could be used to develop a vaccine, and they need to find an uninfected donor with that gene. When the gene is found, it turns out your son is carrying it, and the doctors have not accounted for the possibility that the donor could be a minor. Within minutes, you are asked to sign a consent form so that the blood of your son can save the entire world, but it will cost him his life.

Here are the last two paragraphs directly from the book:

Could you walk into that hospital room where your son sits on a table saying, “Daddy? Mommy? What’s going on?” Could you tell your son you love him? And when the doctors and nurses come back in and say, “I’m sorry, we’ve got to get started now; people all over the world are dying,” could you leave? Could you walk out while your son is crying out to you, “Mom? Dad? What’s going on? Where are you going? Why are you leaving? Why have you abandoned me?”

The following week, they hold a ceremony to honor your son for his phenomenal contribution to humanity . . . but some people sleep through it, others don’t even bother to come because they have better things to do, and some people come with a pretentious smile and pretend to care, while others sit around and say, “This is boring!” Wouldn’t you want to stand up and say, “Excuse me! I’m not sure if you are aware of it or not, but the amazing life you have, my son died so that you could have that life. My son died so that you could live. He died for you. Does it mean nothing to you?”

When my daughter read this email, she was floored. She was already a very prayerful person who deeply loved Jesus and turned to Him in prayer, and now this email, which I had completely forgotten about, was bringing her to a deeper understanding of God's love for each of us. It was clear that our gift, while very thoughtful, loving, and intentionally crafted, paled in comparison to the gift that is freely available to all of us if we are willing to receive it.

This moment was a reminder to me that we should put in the time, energy, and attention to create long-term impacts on our families, communities, and workplaces, while also remembering the source of our true identity, which has nothing to do with any of the titles, awards, disappointments, or failures of our lives.

Also, it's never too late to start writing notes to the people you love.