Jaylen Brown perused the selection of cards at his local Hallmark store. There were so many to choose from: get well cards, thank you cards, birthday cards, holiday cards, it was too much for him. Feeling overwhelmed by the options, he closed his eyes and grabbed one at random from the “Christmas” section. When he opened his eyes to see what he had picked, he saw one that was sickeningly cute, featuring a colored-pencil drawing of a cat and dog sitting in a sleigh, surrounded by presents and mistletoe. The animals were drawn semi-realistically, but had gigantic blue eyes which made them look like anime characters. Regretting his choice but not seeing an easy way to pick a better one, he took the card up the counter to pay for it.
—
Jaylen didn’t have a desk in his apartment, so he set the card down on his kitchen table, along with the one working pen he had found deep in one of his drawers. It had been a long time since he had written anything by hand, and he wasn’t sure where to begin. Finally, he got tired of stalling, and just began to write whatever came to him.
“Dear Gordon,
I know we visit you a lot but I wanted to send you a Christmas card because that’s what my mom said I should do. I hope that you and your wife and kid have a good Christmas and get lots of good presents. You deserve it after that bad injury you had.
I also want to say thank you again for getting injured. Now I get to develop because Brad has no choice but to give me a lot of minutes. Jayson says thank you for getting injured too. If you were playing you would get thirty minutes a game and stunt our developments but you exploded your leg so now we get to play more. Your injury was really gross by the way. Every time I see the video I feel sick.
My mom said I shouldn’t tell you about your injury because its insensitive but I don’t know what else to write. I’m not a good writer.
Thank again for getting injured so I can average fifteen points per game. Merry Christmas man.
-Jaylen”
Satisfied with the words he had written, Jaylen slipped a $25 League of Legends gift card inside, then put the entire thing in an envelope to mail the next day. He was so thankful to have such a good teammate.