Royal Mail employee's act of kindness to boy who lost dad

[SilkenTofu]

Brought a tear to my eye.
There are still good, kind people out there with compassion for others.

This

I’m in bits!

I’m usually so soppy about things like this, but I didn’t like this at all.

The Royal Mail got involved in some pretty heavy shit here.... claiming they had communicated with his father and actually gone up to heaven. It could open up a can of worms. The boy potentially left wondering if the Royal Mail can communicate with his father directly and get up to heaven, then why can’t he?

I think they went in to dangerous territory here.

I have to say I agree with Work on this one.

The intentions were good but I felt very uncomfortable reading it.

What a lovely thing. Royal Mail in my opinion are one of the last good companies. They also send back children a letter from santa if you use the santa address royal mail supply if you ask them.

I also agree with @Workreturner

That poor lad

I agree with you too.

and at some stage he's going to find out that they lied to him.

It's not the same as pretending they deliver to Santa.

I also agree with Work. It’s a dodgy area to get into.

I'm sure child's parents will explain to the child one day why daddy died. For a young child just knowing there letter reached daddy can mean the world.

I saw that the other day - I think it was a kind gesture.

Well the boy is the one who wrote to his dad in heaven, so he’ll obviously learn at the appropriate age that that’s not possible. I think it’s lovely

I also thought this, though kindly meant, was a bit dubious.

Oh I like it. And if there is a heaven then the letter will have been received in spirit anyway. I think writing letters to heaven and being told they got there is a prefect way for a child to express their feelings for their loved one. And for as long as he believes in heaven he can be sure his father read his letters, because if heaven exists his father will know what's in them whether the piece of paper ever reached him or not.

Lovely intentions but a bad idea. He's 7 so will quickly figure out they lied to him, which could be quite damaging, especially as he'll be very vulnerable having lost his dad.

3 years old, possibly

7, no. Dangerous.

This isn’t like find out the truth about Santa or the tooth fairy

This is about someone explicitly saying they have been in contact with his deceased father. That is going to be a mind-f@ck for a 7 year old.

RM only said they delivered it, not that they have any contact with him

The 7 YO obviously expects it to be deliverable otherwise he wouldn’t have posted it?

He's 7, the mum would have opened and read the letter and made the decision about whether to show him based on their belief system/what she has told him.

It was lovely of them to do that. The world needs a little more kindness.

I found it a bit meddling albeit well intentioned. Poorly written too, but that’s irrelevant I suppose!

I’m more surprised at the fact they employed someone without a basic grasp of grammar to do their customer replies.

I can't bear to think of a conversation in which this boy tries to prove to his friends in years to come that heaven does exist by thrusting this letter at them. Imagine if he was laughed at or had his innocence taken by a cynic.

I'm grumpy about anything that supposedly 'restores faith in humanity'. I'm surrounded by kind people in my personal and my work life, it's hardly a stretch to think that the rest of the world might well have kind people in it.

And as for putting it on social media, bloody hell.

Just no, all round. Sorry.

That's a weird one. One the one hand it is deceitful but on the other hand letting him write and post the letter in the first place was a deceitful thing for the mother to do. She is aware that heaven doesn't have post boxes.

If he really believes in heaven in the future, he will think his dad read it anyway. If he doesn't might think it was something that helped him get through a hard time while a little boy.

lots of people tell children about heaven to make them feel better while not actually believing in it anyway.

Yes. I agree with work. They meant well but not a great idea.

I’m afraid this makes me very uncomfortable for all the reasons others have explained.

I worry that the child would hope for a response. Why hasn't daddy written back?

This is wrong, for the reasons stated already.