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 goodbye, 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, air-mailed 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)
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