Sometimes, a Smile is Just What You Need

By Junsang Ryu 

Big things come in small packages. Cecile Dela Cruz is a man of short stature, but he’s one of the biggest people I’ve ever met. He expeditiously moves across the room, briskly arranging the newly arrived packages into order, and repeats this extensive and laborious process for another four hours. Like a cardboard package, he appears feeble yet is capable of remarkable resilience. 

Cecile first spoke with significant weight and appeared serious during our first encounter. But this preconception turned out to be a mere judgment. He is always smiling and eager to hear the other person’s words. Always keen and enthusiastic, he finds pleasure in assisting others. 

“That will be $6.79. How about that,” says Cecile Dela Cruz as he returns his customer the small cardboard package he just received and placed it on top of the counter. It’s Cecile’s job to not only help receive the packages but also help people send them from the school. 

“I taught his daughter when she attended here, you know,” says Mr. Nate Hemphill, the customer, also a teacher at NMH, when asked about his relationship with Cecile. “We go way back. We have known each other for nineteen years now. Cecile is a great man. He’s always cheery and always helpful. He always makes me smile.” Cecile bashfully turns his head away, gently laughing, and slightly blushes. “Stop it,” he says. 

“It’s true Cecile. You are a great man and an amazing friend,” says Leah Rowe, his only coworker at the mail center. “I have been working with him for almost three years now. He always has a smile on his face.”

When I asked Cecile about how he is loved by everyone, he said, “Ha ha thank you. I’m trying. I guess it’s just me you know. I’m just a positive guy.” 

This is Cecile’s nineteenth year of working at Northfield Mount Hermon School. “People wonder how I ended up in a small town like Northfield. It was in the late 80s, early 90s. We’re working with this American family. Richard Muller ’62. Muller is the American Consulate General in Hong Kong. Me and my wife were working with them. And in 1998, when Richard was retired from Hong Kong, he became a Head of the School here. He helped us to come to the United States and introduced us to NMH. So yeah, that’s how it all started.”

After working at the dining hall for fourteen years, Cecile has been running our school’s mailroom ever since. He wanted to try something new, and the mailroom seemed a good option for him. 

There seems to be an overload of boxes. The shelves are all full, and many of them are placed on the floor. Cecile begins stacking the boxes on one side of the room so there is enough space for him to move. The mailroom seems surprisingly more busy than I thought it would be. I wonder if it’s because the school year has just started. I ask him whether it’s like this every day. “The first two weeks of school are the toughest weeks,” says Cecile. “It’s when the new students arrive from all over the world, and so it is for the packages. Every day, more than five hundred packages arrive. It’s often two or three times more than a normal day during the first two weeks. It’s because people order things like blankets, dorm supplies, and books. Amazon is the top supplier. They bring in about 70 to 150 packages every day. The rest of the companies like UPS and FedX are around 50 or so every day.”

The drivers usually help unload the packages from the back of the truck, placing them on top of the metal rack behind the mailroom. “We appreciate their tremendous help very much. I can’t simply thank them enough,” says Cecile. It is then Cecile’s job to take them inside the mailroom and place them on top of a long wooden table, where Leah is ready to sort them into categories. All of the parcels are first scanned to identify the receiver’s name. Then, they are labeled with the mailbox number in accordance. The place is like a well-structured assembly factory. 

I tell him that I want to help. I asked him if he could teach me how the system works. 

“So if you have a package that’s labeled, you’re gonna get a slip and put those inside their mailboxes. Okay? Then place the packages on the shelves according to their number. The red slips are for the boxes. Anything smaller than that, like a package, is a white slip. You just put them in the mailbox of the person that has gotten a package. Boxes that are larger and don’t fit on the shelves are labeled with blue slips. We have a separate space over there to contain them,” says Cecile as he points to the back of the mailroom. There already seem to be several boxes that don’t fit on the shelves. Some appear to be frames, furniture, or even ice hockey sticks. 

“The slips are one of the very first things I did ever since taking over the job here at the mailroom. Originally, the paper slips would get damaged every two days or so and we didn’t have enough supply. So I decided to laminate the slips,” he says as he proudly shows the extra paper slips that aren’t cut out and ready to be laminated. He’s like a little kid trying to show his parents the drawing he did at school. There’s a grin on his face, a mixture of shyness and pride. 

Cecile gets the newly arrived packages and swiftly organizes them according to their mailbox numbers. This process of laborious toil continues for more than thirty minutes. The equivalent process recurs once the other trucks arrive (UPS, FedEx, etc.). 

I decided to stay longer and wait until the other trucks arrived. UPS, FedEx, and DHL are still the ones to come. “Usually, they all arrive before 12:30. They are a little late today,” says Cecile.

As we wait, the Northfield Community Radio Channel plays in the background. Despite most of them being “new” songs, Cecile knows the melody to all of them. He casually whistles to Maroon 5’s “Memories” and calls me over. “Junsang! Come here. Check this out.” As I approach him, I see a flock of thank-you cards stuck on his table. Many are from the students and teachers, but there are also many from past alumni. “People send me thank-you-cards after they graduate. Sometimes for my birthday and sometimes for no reason,” says Cecile. I scan the letters. One of them reads, “You’ve always made my day.” Another says, “I miss your smile.” 

A couple minutes later, the UPS truck arrives. Cecile opens the backdoor, places the wooden wedge door stopper, and unloads the hundred-fifty cardboard boxes. “You can help me place the packages on the shelves according to their box number,” says Cecile. Small packages with no cardboard packaging go below the shelves, and all the other boxes go on them. I take a box at a time. Cecile takes four. The process feels like a good twenty-minute workout with no gym needed. “It makes you stronger!” Cecile exclaims. 

“Water tastes different here you know,” he says with pure delight and pride after sorting the last package. I take a sip. It’s better than Coke. “There is nothing better than a cup of cold water after a tough period of hard work,” he adds. Cecile seems to be happy about the smallest things in life. Such insignificant moments in his day are sources of significant happiness for him. 

“Hi Cecile!” says a tall student wearing an NMH Soccer t-shirt as he enters the door. It’s the first thing he says before stepping into the mailroom. “I’m doing great. How are you doing man?” replies Cecile. Both are grinning. “I know there is no slip in my mailbox, but can you just double check if there is a package under my name?” asks the student. 

“Sure,” Cecile says as he heads to the shelf on the left side of the mailroom. “Nope. Nothing here. Try coming back tomorrow.”.

“Alright, see you tomorrow!”

“It’s always fun to see the excitement in the kids’ faces when they enter the mailroom. I mean, there is nothing possibly more exciting than receiving your package after a week of waiting, right?” he says after the student leaves. There is a spark in his eye, a sign of love. 

Whenever a college sends the students acceptance letters and packages, Cecile is always the first to receive them. Often, he’s also the man the students are most excited about to share this good news. He says they come running in, eager for him to hear the news. “I’m excited for these kids, you know. Especially if you get accepted to the college that you really like. That’s a big deal. Alright. Hi! One moment please.” Without asking what the student’s box number is, Cecile casually heads to the opposite side of the room to pick up her package. “To me, the first thing that comes to my mind when I see someone is their mailbox number. I mean, that’s natural. Right? After all, that’s what I do every day.”

I ask him whether his job ever feels repetitive. He pauses for a moment, then answers. “Every time I come in here, I’m ready. I’m ready to do whatever comes up. That’s my mindset. Doesn’t matter what day it is. I’m ready to tackle everything and to cheer people on and make sure that they get served.”

“Here you go. Have a nice day!” he says as he hands the student her package. “I can’t express how happy I am every day interacting with the students. They make me smile. But they say that it’s my smile that makes them smile. I don’t know. I really don’t know man. Sometimes, a smile is just what you need!”