Yesterday my son called me in a panic- he had gone to his mailbox and found an envelope that had been in there for several months. The envelope did not have a name on the outside so he assumed that it was for his roommate… he double-checked with his roommate who said it wasn’t for him so my son thought maybe it was a birthday card from March that he had just totally ignored for the past several months. He opened the card and there was a $100 bill in it and it said “To AJ love grandma and grandpa…” well my son’s name is not AJ and his grandfather is dead so he called me and was like what do I do, I’m a young guy I’m broke I could use $100 but I feel like this is an integrity test because I can clearly read the return address on the envelope so I feel like I should send it back because these grandparents think that AJ received this money and he didn’t and it has been sitting in my mailbox for months!

And I told him you’re right you should send it back and he said I have to go out of my way though mom I’m going to have to walk an extra mile to a FedEx and I’m going to have to pay money to get this sent back to someone else but I’m gonna do it ’cause you’re right, it’s the right thing to do. He was a little stressed about it. And since I live 2000 miles away from my child and I know that he is not a rich kid I told him hey if you go to send this back then let me know how much it cost and I will send you the money for the shipping because even though integrity is one of those things that you do when nobody is looking since I’m still around I will help you and honestly you may never get rewarded in real life for doing the right thing it’s just the right thing and that in itself is a reward.

He said okay.

I also said the fact that you didn’t automatically decide to pocket this money and you called to see what you should do let me know that you’re learning and a lot of adults don’t even learn what you’re understanding right now about being the kind of person that you want to see in the world.

So he made the treacherous journey this morning to send the money back to the grandparents and he wrote inside the card nothing more than “because, karma”.

He just sent me the receipt that it cost him like $8.00 to send it to them.

So, I sent him $100 because I love him.

And I told him you’re a good dude, sir, always be a good dude no matter what and it really made his day and that’s all I have to say.