My parents were not demonstrative people. Growing up, there wasn’t a lot of hugging, or “I love you’s” or effusive praise for our accomplishments.

And yet, I never doubted that they loved me.

That love was shown in acts of service. In being predictable and reliable. In creating a safe base, and then encouraging us to spread our wings and explore.

When my children were growing up, we lived in Washington State and my parents were in Wyoming, so we were always looking for ways for them to build connections.

In approximately 1998, when we were visiting Wyoming, my oldest was reading the comics from the Sunday paper, and loved them and said he wished we had them at home. (Even back then, we had moved to getting our news online rather than with print news, so a newspaper was a bit of a novelty for my kids, vs. my parents who had subscribed to their local paper their whole lives.)

Starting the next week, my mom would take the comics from the Sunday paper, fold them up and mail them to my kids. It was mail my kids could count on every week. She continued to do that every week for the next 18 years or so, until Alzheimer’s made it hard for her, and then my dad stepped in to that grandparenting duty, and continued to mail the comics to my kids until he passed away. Approximately 22 years of grandparents’ love arriving in an envelope each week.

Did it always matter to my kids? There were years when the envelopes would sit unopened for weeks till they’d get around to opening the mail. And that’s OK. They were always there waiting.

The traditions changed over the years – when my older kids went away to college, the letters alternated: one week to Ohio, the next week to California.

When my oldest child came out as transgender, some of the last people he told were his grandparents. We worried that his Republican, Wyoming octogenarian grandparents wouldn’t understand. The week after he told them, his comics arrived in the mail. My parents had printed up a whole new set of address labels with his new name on them.

When my youngest child was learning to read, the comics were mailed to Washington again. We kept a stash in the car to take into restaurants with us to read as we waited for food. We stashed a few in suitcases for reading on trips.

My mom passed away 8 years ago, and we lost my dad five years ago. Today I ran across our stash of the last five sets of comics that remain unopened. We’ll open four of them over the years, I imagine. But I think I’ll always hold on to one. Knowing that my dad folded up those comics, tucked them in an envelope and licked it, and put that label on, sending love to his grandchildren in that predictable, reliable way that helped them also have that foundation – those roots that help to ground them, as we also give them wings that set them free.