7-year-old’s hilarious sympathy card for teacher goes viral: ‘It was your mom’s turn to die’
A woman unearthed a sympathy card she wrote at age 7 for a grieving teacher and it’s going viral for its “blunt yet compassionate nature.”
“I laughed so hard ... and figured the internet might find it funny as well,” Lindsay Schraad Keeling, 32, tells TODAY.com.
Keeling shared images of the handwritten card on TikTok, as one of her “mortifying childhood stories” where it has more than 3 million views.
In 1999, Keeling was 7 years old when she learned that the mother of her computer teacher had died.
“We had a substitute teacher that day and we were told by the principal that our regular teacher’s mother had passed away,” says Keeling. “He did not assign us to color any pictures or make anything for our teacher, but apparently I decided to do so anyway.”
Keeling, who says she was a “very emotional child,” recalls wanting to do something kind for the teacher, especially since her own pet bird had just died. Upset and curious about the death process, her mom bought her a children’s book about loss.
“I guess I put my newfound knowledge to use and wrote a very factual ‘sympathy card,’” says Keeling, who grew up to become a funeral director and later, an author. “I’m sure I was very proud of it, because I excitedly showed it to my mother — who was wise enough to gently take it from me so I couldn’t give it to my teacher.”
Keeling’s letter, in which she misspelled “sorry,” “has” and “heart,” reads:
By Lindsay, to computer teacher
Sory teacher.
I am so sory computer teacher that your mom had to die. Sory.
But everybody hasts to die some day.
And today it was your mom’s turn to die.
Love love is in your hart.
Keeling drew a computer and a crying face on the card. “Should Hallmark hire me?” she wrote humorously in video text.
TikTok commenters joked that the letter was “very deep” and quoted sympathy letters they had also received from kids.
“My favorite part is that her name is just ‘computer teacher.’”
“This reads like you’re the one who did it.”
“Kids are unhinged. When my mother-in-law passed, my then 3-year-old son kept saying that Nana was ‘eliminated.’”
“My grandpa died in December and the card my 8 year old made him when he got sick said, ‘I hope you enjoy your life while it lasts’ with a picture of a gravestone.”
“My grandma died. A student gave me a card. They drew her in the casket.”
“When I was in third grade, we had to make sympathy cards for a teacher whose husband passed and I wrote, ‘Don’t be sad, get glad’ like the trash bag commercials so I feel this deep in my soul.”
“This wild. Such an aggressive apology.”
“It’s nice (that) everyone gets cards. Every day my 3 year old tells me my mom’s dead, at least once. No card for me. Just cold, hard facts.”
Keeling, who lives in Virginia, says she doesn’t remember much about the day in question. Her mom Julie Schraad sure does.
“She didn’t want to lie to me but she also didn’t want to upset me, so she just said, ‘Oh, that’s very nice and I’m sure she’ll like it, but let’s keep it here for now,’” says Keeling. “That must’ve been a good enough answer for me, because I never asked about it again.”
On July 10, Keeling’s grandfather Joseph died and she made the two-day drive from Virginia to Oklahoma for the funeral. To cheer up her distraught daughter, Julie retrieved the long-forgotten sympathy card she had kept for decades.
Keeling loves how her childhood letter is landing for people.
“The feedback I loved the most — besides all the funny comments — was a person who said their mother had passed away recently and this was ‘the first time they had laughed in weeks,’” says Keeling. “I was so grateful that I could bring joy to people who were grieving like me.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
