Daughter’s letter to heaven gets a reply

Almost every year since her dad died of a brain aneurysm in 2010, 16-year-old Ashlynn Marracino has written him a letter on his birthday — Jan. 6 — and sent it up into heaven on a balloon. But this year the teenager received an unexpected reply — from a woman who found the mylar balloon, more than 400 miles away from where it had been launched.

“I think it came to us for a reason,” said Lisa Swisley, who found the balloon. Swisley had recently started a Pay It Forward page on Facebook, and since sharing the story there, cards and packages have been pouring in to Marracino from all over. “I told [my father] to show me a sign,” Marracino said, “and I think this is a sign…”