Benny was seventy when he died rather suddenly of cancer in
Wilmette, Illinois. Because his ten-year-old granddaughter
Rachel never got the chance to say good-bye, she cried for days.
But after receiving a big red balloon at a birthday party, she
came home with an idea -- a letter to Grampa Benny, airmailed
to heaven in her balloon.
Rachel's mother didn't have the heart to say no, and she
watched with tears in her eyes as the fragile balloon bumped its
way over the trees that lined the yard and disappeared.
Two months later, Rachel received this letter postmarked
from a town six hundred miles away in Pennsylvania:
Dear Rachel,
Your letter to Grampa Benny reached him. He really appreciated it. Please understand that material things can't be kept in heaven, so they had to send the balloon back to Earth -- they just keep thoughts, memories, love and things like that in heaven.
Rachel, whenever you think about Grampa Benny, he knows, and is very close by with overwhelming love for you.
Sincerely,
Bob Anderson (also a Grampa)
from Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul
