#56 44 Photos

Hello, Hello, Oh Hello, Do you know who this is? Yes, Stevie, Yeah, you got me.

You have a pretty recognizable voice.

I have to say.

It has sort of like a pleasantly deep registered wow in a nice way, but it makes your voice very distinct.

It's funny you should say this because, Yeah, one time, when I was like in middle school, my friend called my house and I picked up the phone and I was like, hello, and she thought it was my dad. She was like, hi, Rob, is Stevie home? And I just pretended that, in fact, I was my father, and I was just like, uh yeah, let me get her.

You didn't want to contradict your friend.

I think I was just so embarrassed that I could possibly be mistaken for an old man.

Well maybe with respect to your dad, he maybe he kind of sounds like little girl.

Hello, Stevie Lane, stads speaking.

I'm Stevie Lane, and this is Heavyweight Today's episode forty four photos.

Right after the break.

There are places, according to Celtic folklore, where the boundary between our physical world and the spiritual world is porous, where Earth and the otherworldly are separated.

By no more than a few inches.

At these places, strange unexplainable things can happen. These places are called thin places, and this is a story about one of them. A few years ago, Jordan Kissner wrote a book about thin places. She wanted to send it to her friend Amy.

So it was April seventh, twenty twenty one, and I went to the USPS that was a few blocks away from my apartment at the time.

Jordan bought a brown padded envelope, put her book inside, and handed it to the postal worker and that was that.

It was a really uneventful post office visit on a pretty normal spring day in Vegas.

It was a sunny day in April, and I walked to the mailbox. This is Jordan's friend Amy, which is a really exciting part of my day. I really like mail. And I opened the mailbox with the little key and there's something like stuffed into my box.

Something Amy had been expecting the package Jordan sent her.

It says, you know, to Amy from Jordan and the addresses Las Vegas.

Amy brought the package back to her house and eagerly tore it open. But inside Amy did not find Jordan's book. She didn't find a book at all. Instead, she found a stack of.

Photographs, and that's where the mystery begins.

Amy didn't recognize anyone in the photos. There was one of a girl wearing a blue T shirt with clouds printed on it, another of three teenagers in caps and gowns. The people were of all different ages and races. Some of the photos were in black and white, some in color.

Maybe Jordan sent these by accident.

So Amy texted Jordan, telling her she received her package, but rather than a book, found forty four photographs inside.

And I was completely confused.

I just couldn't.

I actually felt like I couldn't totally comprehend the message she was sending me.

So Jordan texted Amy back.

Wait, Comma, what with two question marks?

Two?

Yeah? Two?

And then photos question mark.

Amy sent Jordan a picture of the package and all forty four photographs spread out on her kitchen counter.

And she said, what in all caps? I have no idea what those photos are. I don't even I know those people, but that's my handwriting on the package.

It was hard to know what to make of the whole thing. It's like Amy expected a book about thin places but got an actual thin place experience instead. Amy can't bring herself to just throw the photos away, so for an entire year now she's kept them by her desk, and for an entire year she's been studying them. There's the one of a new baby sucking on someone's finger. There's a little girl in glasses and a cheerleader's outfit, holding her leg up and smiling confidently into the camera.

Is there a way to find any of these people?

Like?

Who are they? Do they want their photographs back? Because I would like the photographs to be returned to the family. I feel like people should have their things.

A year ago, when Amy first received the package, she and Jordan tried opening a case file on the mysterious photos hoping the USPS could shed light on where they came from, but nothing ever came of it.

The mail system, we feel like we understand it, but then when you really think about it, it is this complete mystery. It's like a void into which we send stuff and from which that stuff emerges again. But then when it doesn't emerge, you're like, wait a second, but what is where is it going?

What is this system? What don't we know about it?

There's a lot that I don't know about it, but Amy and Jordan want my help figuring out how Amy ended up with the photographs and how to return to sender. To get to the bottom of it, I'll have to navigate a mysterious, little understood world that exists alongside our own, a world separated only by an inches wide slot in a metal box. And so I step over the boundary into the world of the United States Postal Service.

I start with a.

Theory that Jordan, Amy and I discussed on the phone. Jordan had sent Amy the book via media mail, a discounted rate for sending things like books and CDs. From what I read online, it sounds like the Post Office searches media mail packages to prevent people from sending anything they want on the cheap and in fact, Amy noticed that the package had been taped up as though it

Are you sort of like the James Bond of the mail service?

Actually, it's funny you mentioned that my badge number was double O seven.

No really, really, his name is me Halco, Dan Mihalko. He's a US Postal inspector. And what does he inspect?

Postal crimes? Theft of mail, mail fraud, prohibited items in the mail such as bombs, narcotics, anthrax, attacks, pornography.

I put my theory to Dan.

Might the Postal Inspection Service have opened and examined Jordan's package?

No, No, we don't do anything like that. The only time would ever inspect mail is if we had a search warrant so that we can't just open up mail. Huh, nobody in a postal service has that.

Authority, Dan says, USPS investigators don't inspect packages without probable cause.

Here's what it sounds like may have happened.

So Dan guesses that somewhere along the way, Jordan's package got damaged and the.

Book fell out.

Another package carrying the bundle of photos could have also broken open. A postal worker might have seen the loose bundle of photos, thought they belonged to Jordan's envelope, and accidentally switched the packaging. And here's where that switch might have occurred.

It used to be commonly referred to as a dead letter office, but now it's I think it's Mail Recovery Center.

The Mail Recovery Center, or MRC, is located in Atlanta, Georgia. It's where all undeliverable mail winds up. Some of the stuff they receive is truly strange. An alligator skull still covered in flesh cremation boxes Tom Nissalke's nineteen seventy one NBA championship, which had been stolen from him twelve years before, showing up at the MRC. I don't know who Tom

They have to try to put pieces together. You know, they're kind of sluice in their own way.

In their own way, don't condescend to the MRC agent Mihalko.

If Dan is right, the.

Original package, the photos came in with the original address might still be sitting somewhere at the MRC. So I phone up the person in charge.

To ask, this is a manager.

Lionel snow, Oh high, Lionel, my name is Stevie Lane and I'm a radio journalist. Do you have a moment so I can tell you why I'm calling?

Uh?

Not really, I mean I don't have a lot of conversation time to falup with customers.

Nevertheless, I tell him about the mix up.

Anything could have happened, Anything could have happened.

I mean, I can tell you.

Lionel tells me that, contrary to Dan Mihalko's theory, Jordan's package likely never made it to the MRC. If it had, it would probably have a special stamp on it, which Jordan's package doesn't. I ask if he has any other guesses, but he just keeps sweeping out his favorite phrase.

Anything could have happened, Anything could have happened. I can make an educated guess or or not.

When I press, the answer is or not.

Anything could have happened.

Jordan had likened the mail system to avoid into which we send stuff and from which that stuff emerges. But it appears it's also a void into which I send my questions and from which nothing emerges. Over a number of weeks, I reach out to more people at the USPS, in the Communications Department, the Historian's office, even the Postal Museum.

It is a mystery.

I can't really guess.

You have one hundred and sixty million addresses in the US.

It could have come from any one of them.

Nobody is able to help.

I've hit a dead end with the post Office, so I turn to the only other information that I have, the photos themselves. Is there a way to identify the people in these photographs? There's a photo of someone's pet cat, but it doesn't have a collar.

With a tag.

There's a graduation, but it doesn't show the name of the school. There's one photo of a man sitting in a restaurant pulling up a signed headshot of what looks like a younger version of himself. The headshot is signed doctor Pedro something MD, but after hours of photoshop sharpening, I still can't read what that something is. For every photo, I'm just one small piece of information away from cracking

Hello, Hi, is this Jalon I'd called a few days before and left a message.

I'm just really curious what this is all about. Honestly, I have no idea how to be involved in anything that you would be looking into.

So I explain about the package of photos Amy received, about one in particular of a man with a child and a dog with a inscription on the back, and it says Dallan, Kelly and queenye At grandparents Coxes Kelly nine and a half months.

Definitely, that's crazy.

Yeah, that's crazy.

That would be my dad.

Yeah, huh, yeah, it sounds like it might be of my dad and my sister Kelly.

Dallan's dad is Dalan Senior.

Dallan suggests I give him a call to see if the photo belongs to him.

Hello.

I tell Dalan Senior all about the photo of him and his daughter Kelly. Then I texted over to him, all right, here it comes.

Yeah, I'm a beet daughter. Wow.

That would have been from nineteen sixty seven, probably sixty eight.

She'd have been about nine months old, I would say at that time obviously is standing up a little bit, but she walked at early age like that, So yeah, that's really something.

No, I don't have that picture in my collection. In fact, I don't recall ever having seen it before. Kelly was born in sixty seven, in June of sixty seven, and she actually she passed away in March of last year.

Kelly died on March thirtieth, twenty twenty one. The package with Kelly's photo was postmarked April seventh, twenty twenty one, just one week after she died, so.

That just makes it really strange.

Kelly died unexpectedly of heart failure at the age of fifty three.

It was a shock to her family.

Everybody loved her laugh.

When she laughed, it was just really unique, an enthusiastic laugh, you know. I remember taking her with me to like one weekend and she learned the water ski and she was having a ball. My dad used to take Kelly at that age, when she was about a year old, down to the lake and they would feed the ducks. He'd take breadcrumbs and they'd throw them to the ducks, and she got so excited to do that.

That was her favorite thing to do.

Dyllan Senior doesn't recognize the handwriting on the back of the photograph, but he wonders if it belongs to Kelly's mother, his ex wife, Betty. Betty had been sick and unable to make it to Kelly's funeral. Maybe she put it in the mail, hoping it would arrive for the service. When I phoned Betty, she doesn't remember the photo, but she tells me that she did indeed mail a package of photos to her granddaughter, Devin. Devin is Kelly's daughter.

This is Devin.

So I called.

Devan to see if I ended up with the photos that her grandma tried to send her.

No, I did get a package of photos from my grandmother.

Huh.

Devin got the photos from Betty in a package that was firmly sealed, and the photo of Kelly and Dallen that one wasn't in there. Devin says she's never seen it before. As for the rest of the photographs Amy received.

I don't recognize any of the people, none of them.

Huh.

No.

Dallan Junior, Dalan Senior, and Betty all said the same thing when I sent them the photos. Somehow, then it seems this photograph, along its journey through the mail, wound up with forty three other images of other random families. Devin can't tell me anything about those other families, but she does tell me about her own. Her mom, Kelly,

I know that my mom had mental health issues, and it took over my mom's life in many ways. There were many instances in my mom's life where she didn't have the power to take care of me. And there were many years that passed by and I had nothing to do with my mom, Like I didn't know where she was. I didn't hear from her. I was unsure if she was even alive. So I've had a hard time growing up believing that my mom loved me.

But Devin tells me in the last seven or eight years before her mom's death, that changed. Devin was in her mid twenties, and without explanation, seemingly overnight, Kelly started reaching out more. She would come over to help Devin with projects around the house, like painting cabinets. The two of them spent hours sitting together on the couch, playing Zelda, and.

I felt like I had my mom. I finally had my mom. I was an adult, but at least I had my mom. Two weeks before she passed, my mom just out of the blue said do you want to go out and go do something together? And I was like, I don't know where do you want to go? And she's like, what about that place that has mini golf and go carts? And I was like, okay, then let's go.

As for the photograph and the strange circumstances of its appearance, I don't.

Feel like it's weird. I just think that it fits my mom's personality to do something like that.

How do you mean it fits her personality to do something like.

She believed that there's something beyond death. And I've never believed in ghosts or anything or anything after you passed, but if there is something there, my mom would definitely do something like this.

See you think that this is almost like a missive from your mom.

Yeah, I think that's possible, and I feel like this is her trying to say I'm still here.

In Jordan's book, she writes that in thin places quote invisible things like music or love or dead people might become visible, or if they don't become visible, they become so present and tangible that it doesn't matter.

Like Devon, I'm not.

One to believe in ghosts, Yet after talking with everyone, I still don't know where the photo of Kelly came from. No one in Kelly's family can account for it, so after months of searching, the origins of this photo are still a mystery. But in what I see as a series of unexplainable events that began with Jordan sending a book and ended up here, Devin sees her mother, and it's precisely the unlikeliness of the that she points to as proof.

I just think, if you look at all of the little pieces of how this happened, not just anybody would have reached out and tried to find the owner of a photo, I think it would have been tossed in the trash or pushed aside.

I feel like.

It's like a treasure.

From my mom.

That's how I feel huh, like my mom placed it there on purpose and got it into the right hands that would reach out to me.

I'd been thinking of this as a story about male going to the wrong place, but listening to Devn, I wonder if it's actually a story about it going to the right one to Amy. And yet because the photo wound up in Amy's hands, Devin didn't get it for an entire year after Kelly's death. If Kelly wanted Devin to have the photo, why deliver it a year late?

Why?

Now?

There have been times where I've really needed somebody to be in my house with me, and out of everybody in my family and out of all of my friends, my mom would drop anything to come and support me. And when she passed, I didn't have that safety net anymore.

I had trouble at my job and I had to take extra time off. But if she's still here, that makes a difference.

It's not easy losing a mom, so having this feeling that she's still here and she's still with me is is amazing.

Right after a loss, there are a lot of people to lean on, but as time passes and people return to their lives, you begin to feel that loss in a new way. Houses get cleaned out, clothes get donated, and all evidence of the person fades away with the photo. Though Kelly has come back to Devon a year late, but perhaps right on time. Devin's grandfather, Dallan Senior, is turning seventy five soon. Devon told me that they're throwing

Fern atures rip turned into its good will.

Home, now that the last month's rant is skiming with the damage to post, take this moment to dessert.

If we mentioned if we trash Feld for.

Things as dan Lee.

Zero.

This episode of Heavyweight was produced by me Stevie Lane, along with Jonathan Goldstein, Phoebe Flanagan, and Mohemi mcgouger. Our Senior producer is Khaleila Holt. Special thanks to Alex Bloomberg, mime O'Donnell, Laurence Silverman, Maureene Taylor, Estelle Ivory and all The Incredibly Patient People over at the USPS editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions,

Amy has just written a new.

Book, Artificial, a graphic memoir about her father's efforts to preserve her late grandfather's life identity using AI technology. You can find it at your local bookstore. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight, on Instagram at Heavyweight podcast, or email us at Heavyweight at gimlipmedia dot com. You can follow our show on Spotify and tap the bell to receive notifications when new episodes.

Drop, and one will drop next week.

Hello Stevie's dad speaking.

Oh that was nice, okay, great Estelle, Thank you so much. What is your school about anyway,