Anyone who has pulled one of these "We Care" envelopes out of her mailbox knows it is not a good sign. In this case, I thought the postal service did a pretty darn good job of preserving the letter.
There's the front, with the address and return address still visible through the plastic window.
The letter was originally sent in a very thin plastic envelope, which opened and folded up at the corner. I imagine it was too flimsy for the sorting machines.
That's my hand holding the envelope closed for the photograph. It wouldn't stay closed on its own.
The good news is that it seems everything the sender included did actually make it to me, and she had enclosed all kinds of little stickers and papers and such... so my hat goes off to our postal service in this case. The envelope wasn't strong enough to make it through the sorting machines, but they salvaged it and the contents as well.
