10 Moments of Compassion That Remind Us Pets Keep Bringing Out the Best in Humanity


With four daughters, my dad packed four lunch bags every school morning and wrote a name on each one in a different marker. As the youngest, I always got the marker that was running out, so my name looked like a ghost by October. These 10 dads went further than names, and their kids kept the bags for years.
“I’m a single, working dad who loves leaving these silly notes by my daughter’s food. She told me to share it here.”
It’s gaming in general; after 34 years of playing, I couldn’t afford to reference only one game.
“My daughter has to have her name written on her lunch bags. Challenge accepted.”
She actually got nearly all of them. There’s a couple that I had to explain, but that just meant it became a chance to learn something new, or that we knew what we were watching that evening.
The other kids in her class dig them.
From the author:
My dad’s system for four lunch bags was all business: one marker per daughter, handed out in birth order. My oldest sister got the fresh black. By the time he got to me, he was down to whatever was left in the junk drawer, a green that smelled like apples and once, I swear, a highlighter. My sisters say I’m exaggerating about the highlighter. I still have the bag.
“Daughter put this in my lunch bag”
She the best,gonna be walking round work with a massive smile all day.
She’s 13
She calls me me dad normally
“Found out my 11 year old daughter is glueing my lunch bag notes inside her school binder.”
I will keep doing it until she tells me to stop!
I couldn’t imagine not putting one in her lunch now. She loves em too much to miss it!
The fact that she keeps em makes me incredibly happy. Just knowing she reads em is enough but seeing this validated why I do it for sure!
“A lunchbox note written from my grandfather to my mom that I found tucked away in an old photo album”
“Dear Sweetheart,
Well, here I am at the PTA meeting and no one seems to be around.
It’s been so many years since I sat at a chair this small and with shaking hands scribbled my first words. What a chore!
Now that I look back, it wasn’t really that long ago. Life goes by very fast and we must study hard to prepare ourselves for the day when we spring from the nest to face the world alone.
We may never be rich, great, or well known, but I hope that someday we’ll be able to look back and say with pride that we did our very best.
Work real hard and share a smile with a friend.
Love, Daddy”
He’s a quiet soul with so much rich wisdom
He turned 83 in September
They’re basically best friends to this day.
“Wrote a nice note for my daughter’s lunch like she asked.”
She is almost 11.
From the author:
My dad never wrote a note in our lunches. He said things with objects instead. Every boyfriend who came to dinner got the screwdriver and the squeaky cabinet door, and Dad watched who asked which screw. Two of those boys are his sons-in-law now, and the door still squeaks. A name in fading marker was his lunch note. It took me years to read it that way.
“I leave a pad of paper in my son’s lunchbox so he can tell me what he liked or didn’t like in his lunch. Yesterday he wrote me this note. He’s becoming such a nerd and it’s hilarious to me.”
“4yo daughter left a note in my lunchbox.”
Context: I leave a napkin note in my daughter’s lunch box every day that says “Dad ❤️ Ellie”. Today, I was making my lunch to go to work while she and mom stayed home when my daughter wanted to put a note in it.
“Hubby and I would draw fun art on the kids lunch bags when they were little. They are growing up too fast.”
We like to do art in different ways. Pastels, acrylics, inks, graphite, photographs, signage, etc
From the author:
Last Easter, my sisters and I finally settled the marker argument at the kitchen table. The oldest swore she got the fresh black every single year. I brought up the highlighter. Dad listened to the whole thing, then said he only ever bought one pack each fall, so somebody had to get the end of it. Then he admitted it was usually me.
“I spent the summer drawing on my son’s lunch bags.”
For 3 days a week, all summer long he went to a summer activity program, and each day he got to bring a new picture with him. There were some I didn’t get pictures of, but these were the highlights.
he’s been giving them to girls. at 5 he already knows what’s up.
“I’ve been drawing on my son’s lunch bags every day for 2 years, he just finished 1st grade, these were some of my favorites.”
His friends ask for them, so he usually gives them away. His art teacher has a few pasted on the walls of her classroom. He does keep a few now and then that he really likes.
“4 years ago vs. today — progress made drawing on a lunch bag a day”
I picked the lunch bags because drawing for my kids pushed me out of the habit of drawing the same things. mostly to give them something fun, but the collateral benefits have been nice
“I like to draw goofy stuff on lunch bags.”
I tel him how lucky he is all the time!
Nobody in my family remembers what was inside those lunches. Peanut butter, probably. But all four of us can still tell you what color our name was on the bag. The dads in these stories knew the outside of the bag is the part kids keep.
Did someone ever leave you a note or a drawing in your lunch? Tell us in the comments.











