Sending smiles across the miles: Care packages bring comfort in troubling times

For parents of college freshmen, autumn can be a bittersweet season as their children settle into campuses away from home for the first time. As the father of grown kids now thriving at opposite ends of the United States, I know how daunting that distance can feel.
Sometimes I wish my arms could span the continent, giving each of them a cheerful tap on the shoulder. But I’m glad that my reach is long enough to rummage the corners of our pantry, foraging for things to share. It’s the first step in making care packages for my offspring, a ritual my wife and I have come to embrace.

Given the anxiety of the headlines these days, just about anyone can benefit from a care package – an older relative, or a far-flung friend. It’s a gesture of love and a tangible reminder that in a troubled world, goodness still finds a way to cross the threshold.

Care packages rose to fame after World War II, when a group of charities known as the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, or CARE, organized to help those ravaged by the aftermath of World War II. Leftover military rations were repackaged into boxes that went to needy families, a crucial lifeline in a broken time.

Generations later, care packages have evolved. They can be as simple as a small box of goodies mailed to someone you love.
Over time, my wife and I have developed a few notions about what makes an ideal care package. Here’s our advice:
Be personal

In an age of online commerce, it’s easy to point and click through a website, ordering just about anything for shipment to a friend or relative. But sending a few treasures from your own household gives care packages a special intimacy. Our son-in-law loves lemon curd on his biscuits, so we always include a jar in his care packages. It’s our way of erasing the miles and vicariously returning him to our breakfast table.

Include a note

There’s nothing like a handwritten message to make a care package memorable. Years ago, when our son was spending his first semester in a dormitory, I tucked a brief letter in to a parcel of baked goods we sent him. Long after he’d devoured the treats, my words of encouragement remained pinned to his bulletin board. A personal letter nestled within a handful of gifts can sometimes be the best gift of all.

Savor surprise

To sharpen the pleasure of our care packages, my wife and I try to wrap each item within the box so that our children can indulge in some suspense as the contents are slowly revealed. Who doesn’t like unwrapping a gift?

Celebrate the local

Our daughter is fond of some pasta sauce from an Italian restaurant in my neighborhood, so we often pack a jar in her care package. Because pecans are a regional specialty where I live in Louisiana, they’re a staple in our care packages, too. For our kids, these delicacies pleasantly point them to their roots.

Share your passions 

Since everyone in our family likes to read, books are a common part of our care packages. A recent package for our daughter included a copy of “The Women,” Kristin Hannah’s new bestseller. Meanwhile, our son got a paperback edition of J.L. Carr’s “A Month in the Country.” Feel free to express your own common interests in your care packages, whether it’s a neat piece of music or tickets to a much-anticipated movie.

Go for nostalgia

When our children were small, they delighted in dishpan cookies, so named, as one story goes, because their multitude of ingredients – including brown sugar and flour, eggs and cornflakes, coconut, rolled oats, toasted pecans, and chocolate chips – required a dishpan for mixing. They were once a tradition in our family, the almost-too-muchness of these cookies chiming with the crowded plenitude of our days.

As my wife and I made a batch for our children’s care packages one recent Sunday, the sweet aroma quickly took us back. A gray afternoon suddenly felt lighter. Our kids loved getting them almost as much as we loved making them. That’s the thing about sending care packages. In putting so much of your heart in the mail, you end up caring for yourself.