July 28, 2023 — One of the best things humankind may have learned from the pandemic is to cherish the hugs. The up-close-and-personal. The sense of another’s heart beating against our own.
At the end of every day during that year in isolation, our now dearly departed Cardie Oma Hannlis would leave her perch on the oceanside balcony outside my apartment, stand in my open doorway with her arms stretched way out in front of her with hands clasped in a big circle. “See this,” she’d call to me sitting at my desk across the room. I’d look up and she’d look down into those outstretched arms and smile. “You’re right inside here,” she’d say. “Can you feel me hugging you?” I’d nod real big, smile back, and off she’d go to her apartment down the hall.
It was all the cards sent by this Cardie Community that felt like hugs to Hannlis. Literally hundreds of them that you sent to her along with the many you sent to your own family members and friends. She said so sweetly what so many of us were thinking, “Cards Feel Sooo Good!” To read and hold and read again while relishing the sense that someone had thought enough of her to want to wrap their love around her. Yum!
It was Contributing Cardie Sherry Schultz who penned the message that became the tender new card above. She’d sent the words to us a year or more ago and, when we sent her the image that we felt matched her sentiment, Sherry agreed, “I looove that picture! :)”
She said she’d written the message, “For our granddaughter Minnie, whose answer to everything is, ‘I’ll make a card!’” Minnie had just turned seven, Sherry explained, “and makes cards for every occasion. In kindergarten, when a little girl was acting-out because she could not speak English like the rest of the kids in her class, Minnie decided to make her ‘a friend card.’ The day after the little girl received it, she handed Minnie a thank you card she’d made!”
Minnie clearly has Cardie DNA … her grandmother muses, “In today’s increasingly paperless world, I’m still in love with giving and receiving real paper cards. And my mom LOVES cards even more than me — if that’s possible!” She insists, “Mom writes the best messages and has inspired my writing all my life.
“Thank You cards are my favorite,” Sherry shared, “because I believe a person’s day can totally change when they receive an unexpected message of genuine appreciation. Everyone should keep Thank You cards in their desk, their glove compartment, or even in their junk drawer,” Sherry believes. “You would be surprised how easy it is to give one out, and then how often you want to do it. When I share how special that person made me feel, it actually lifts my spirits, too.
“Gratitude is the most important expression of all that is good in life,” she says beautifully. “It captures the love you feel for that special human, the compassion you have when they are hurting, the relief when help has arrived. So Thank Youcards fit every occasion, because there is always, always, something to be grateful for.”
If cards could hug, this one would wrap itself around Sherry and Minnie and never let them go!
Jodee Stevens
Founder & Chief Creative
July 28, 2023 — One of the best things humankind may have learned from the pandemic is to cherish the hugs. The up-close-and-personal. The sense of another’s heart beating against our own.
At the end of every day during that year in isolation, our now dearly departed Cardie Oma Hannlis would leave her perch on the oceanside balcony outside my apartment, stand in my open doorway with her arms stretched way out in front of her with hands clasped in a big circle. “See this,” she’d call to me sitting at my desk across the room. I’d look up and she’d look down into those outstretched arms and smile. “You’re right inside here,” she’d say. “Can you feel me hugging you?” I’d nod real big, smile back, and off she’d go to her apartment down the hall.
It was all the cards sent by this Cardie Community that felt like hugs to Hannlis. Literally hundreds of them that you sent to her along with the many you sent to your own family members and friends. She said so sweetly what so many of us were thinking, “Cards Feel Sooo Good!” To read and hold and read again while relishing the sense that someone had thought enough of her to want to wrap their love around her. Yum!
It was Contributing Cardie Sherry Schultz who penned the message that became the tender new card above. She’d sent the words to us a year or more ago and, when we sent her the image that we felt matched her sentiment, Sherry agreed, “I looove that picture! :)”
She said she’d written the message, “For our granddaughter Minnie, whose answer to everything is, ‘I’ll make a card!’” Minnie had just turned seven, Sherry explained, “and makes cards for every occasion. In kindergarten, when a little girl was acting-out because she could not speak English like the rest of the kids in her class, Minnie decided to make her ‘a friend card.’ The day after the little girl received it, she handed Minnie a thank you card she’d made!”
Minnie clearly has Cardie DNA … her grandmother muses, “In today’s increasingly paperless world, I’m still in love with giving and receiving real paper cards. And my mom LOVES cards even more than me — if that’s possible!” She insists, “Mom writes the best messages and has inspired my writing all my life.
“Thank You cards are my favorite,” Sherry shared, “because I believe a person’s day can totally change when they receive an unexpected message of genuine appreciation. Everyone should keep Thank You cards in their desk, their glove compartment, or even in their junk drawer,” Sherry believes. “You would be surprised how easy it is to give one out, and then how often you want to do it. When I share how special that person made me feel, it actually lifts my spirits, too.
“Gratitude is the most important expression of all that is good in life,” she says beautifully. “It captures the love you feel for that special human, the compassion you have when they are hurting, the relief when help has arrived. So Thank Youcards fit every occasion, because there is always, always, something to be grateful for.”
If cards could hug, this one would wrap itself around Sherry and Minnie and never let them go!
Jodee Stevens
Founder & Chief Creative
I am a touchy feely hugger type of person. The pandemic was agony for me. So glad we get to hug freely now and I totally agree about sending and receiving thank you notes. A friend of mine said she still has the thank you note our son wrote to her after his high school graduation. That was 28 years ago. Cards matter.
I have sent the “I’m holding you in my heart” to many people. I love your cards, but now that they are $4.25 each, I’m so very sorry to say I can no longer afford them. I will miss sending them very much.
Cards open up communication. Recently my 10-year-old great-niece was in camp for a month. She LOVED it. Her mom told me she could not have her phone with her (tough restriction for many people) however she could receive cards. During the weeks she was there I sent her a few cards (cardthartic OF COURSE) with a magnet in each of them (tiny souvenirs to take home and remind her of camp). So how did that open up communication you wonder. Well, I got a handwritten note from her telling me about camp and the fun she was having with Sooooo many new friends. That note and envelope is stapled in my yearly calendar that each year I use as a diary of cherished memories. All thanks to the cards I sent.