Right now I am cherishing this photo more than I would have ever thought.  The day I took it, Doug, as usual did not want to be in the photo.  I had never forced him to be in our pictures before, but on this particular day in April, I told him that he was just going to have to suck it up and be in a photo.  As much as he had done for our organization, I felt that the troops should get a chance to see one of our team members who was supporting their efforts overseas.  I took the photo quickly before he could jump out of the way.  I’m so glad I forced the issue and took the photo. I wouldn’t have one if I had not been so pushy that day, and now I wish I had taken a few more.

We’ve all got the same 24 hours to work with, day in and day out. We have the freedom to make choices about how we spend our time, and our choices lead to what we accomplish each day. We choose the attitude with which we carry out these choices and, rather we realize it or not, we have an impact on everyone who comes into contact with us.

Have you ever thought about the impact you have on others?  What is the first thing someone thinks about when they think of you?  On most days we are all so busy trying to survive our schedules that we don’t think about the impact we are having on others.  And then something tragic happens. Somebody dies an unexpected death and our minds are inundated with thoughts of this person.

Right now my mind is reeling as I try to wrap my mind around the fact that my buddy, Doug Poole, drowned in Lake Douglas, in Tennessee, over the weekend. I’m can’t classify myself as having been one of Doug’s good friends, but for some reason I have not been able to stop shedding tears.  The loss of this good man’s life is tragic and it is tearing me apart.

Doug was probably one of the nicest guys anyone could meet.  He worked at the Beaumont Post Office here in Lexington, Kentucky, for ten years.  For the past three years, he has been our “go to guy” at Military Missions.  We mail care packages out almost every month of the year and Doug has been the one that has made sure every box gets out and the job is done right.

At Military Missions, we have been mailing boxes since the beginning of 2005.  To be honest, trying to mail hundreds, sometimes thousands, of boxes can be pretty tedious when you have fill out a customs form by hand for every single box.  Writing out military addresses is even more tedious. Matching labels to forms and making sure that everything is correct, not to mention hauling the sea of boxes up to the Post Office, is a huge endeavor that takes several days, and several people, to coordinate and complete.  We have had our share of frustrations over the years as we have learned how to best get the job done.

When we first started working with Doug, he was just another voice on the other end of the phone and the face that met us at the back door when we dropped off the boxes. It wasn’t long, however, before I realized that Doug wasn’t just any other guy who happened to work at the Post Office.

Doug cared about doing things right.  He was willing to go beyond the call of duty to get the job done.  If I called to say we were going to drop our boxes off, it didn’t matter that he was about to leave for lunch, or that it was time for him to go home.  He would wait for us to arrive. He would stay late, and he was known to skip lunch altogether, to be there when we arrived. He put our schedule ahead of his own month after month.

Trying to call a busy Post Office can be frustrating.  Doug gave me his cell number and said, “Just call me directly.  I’ll take care of you.”  I haven’t dialed the USPS number for a couple of years now.

When I needed to mail a shipment of boxes, I just called Doug and he helped me figure out what needed to be done.  If I needed to drop off 50 boxes or 2,050 boxes, Doug was always ready to help.  He never complained and he never made me feel like I was inconveniencing him.

All I had to do was mention that I needed to pick up some tape or flat rate boxes, and when I arrived, Doug had already gathered what was needed.

Maybe all of this seems mundane to you, but imagine the importance of getting this done right.  For every box we send over, if it does not end up in the hands of the intended soldier, we might as well have thrown $35 out the window. That is out of the question for our little nonprofit.

It wasn’t long before Doug was offering to come by our office and pick up smaller loads for us so we wouldn’t have to bring the boxes up to the Post Office. He said he had to go there anyway.  Instead of making us come back by to pick up receipts and forms, he would bring them by our office on his way home from work.  He even offered to go out of his way to bring things to my house just because he was always willing to make things easier on everyone else. Nowhere was ever out of his way, but rather, right on his way. I could have probably been living across the state line and he would have found a reason that it was “on his way” to stop by and help.

Needless to say, I feel like I’ve lost a friend.  I didn’t hang out with Doug, but I spent plenty of time talking to him on the phone, not to mention while we were unloading hundreds of boxes every month. We talked about all sorts of things that had nothing to do with mail, and he never failed to ask me about my son, a disabled veteran. He never met my son, but he sure did care about how he was doing with his recovery. Doug even felt comfortable enough to ask me for help with something one time.  I guess maybe I did qualify as one of his “friends” after all.

Military Missions is synonymous with care packages, which makes our operation incomplete without the Post Office, and without Doug Poole.  Not only has USPS lost an important member of their team, we feel we have lost an important member of our Military Missions team.

It’s going to be difficult to get our next batch of packages out at the end of the month. We’ve got to figure out how to do this task without our “go to guy”.  I know that anyone can step in and do the job, but it’s going to be difficult for anyone to fill Doug’s shoes and do it with the same smile and the same heart.

I’m going to suggest that they put an extra tissue box in the Beaumont lobby for the next few weeks.  There are a lot of us who are going to have to come to terms with this loss, and it’s going to hurt when we walk in those doors.

Remember to live each day to the fullest because none of us knows when our time here on earth is going to end. We should all want to be remembered as Doug will be remembered. Doug cared about our troops and he cared about people.  He always wore a smile. He was never too busy to help others. He put everyone else first, and he always put himself last.