PENSACOLA, Fla. — As Mother’s Day approaches, many reflect on the women who shaped them, not just through milestone moments, but through the quiet, consistent acts of care.

For Rick Henszey, a distribution system operator at FPL’s Pine Forest Distribution Control Center, Mother’s Day is a reminder of the handwritten letters his mother, Patricia Henszey, sent across oceans and decades—offering comfort and strength when it was needed most.

Rick was 7 years old in the summer of 1967, happily immersed in the kind of imaginative adventure only childhood allows.

“I made up my mind that I needed to spend my summer exploring and conquering our front yard,” Rick says. “Leading the expedition would be my G.I. Joe action figure, barking commands from the bed of my bright yellow Tonka Mighty Dump Truck.”

That afternoon, a stranger arrived at the family’s eastern Pennsylvania farmhouse. Tall, bearded and unfamiliar, the man asked if Patricia lived there. Rick pointed him toward the porch.

Patricia welcomed the visitor inside. After a short time, the two emerged, spoke quietly on the porch and shared a brief embrace before the man drove away—never to be seen again.

Inside, Rick found his mother seated at the worn kitchen table, surrounded by papers, writing yet another letter.

“He’s a soldier,” she told him. “He just got out of the Army. He was serving our country in a place called Vietnam.”

Patricia explained that she regularly wrote letters to soldiers—working through a list of names and writing to several at a time before starting over again. In her letters, she shared encouragement, gratitude for their service and reminders that someone back home was thinking of them and rooting for their safe return.

“She told him that she was very proud of him and asked him to be careful and look out for those around him,” Rick remembers.

Those words mattered more than she knew. The soldier had driven for days just to thank her in person.

“Although she shrugged it off,” Rick says, “I never forgot the events of that day.”

In the years that followed, other servicemen made the same journey—to meet the woman whose letters had helped carry them through some of the most difficult moments of their lives.

Time passed, and in April 1980, Rick found himself stepping onto the flight deck of the USS Nimitz in the northern Indian Ocean, deployed during a period of heightened tension. Newly assigned, far from home and surrounded by noise, heat and uncertainty, he felt completely overwhelmed.

“I did not know a single soul on the ship. I did not know how to get around. I was absolutely lost and overwhelmed,” Rick says.

When he met his supervisor, something unexpected happened. After hearing his last name, the supervisor opened a desk drawer and pulled out a worn envelope.

“It was a wrinkled, crumpled and dirty envelope mailed from the far side of the planet. And it was addressed to me,” Rick says.

Inside was a letter from his mother—written weeks earlier, before she even knew where he would be stationed.

“She wrote that she was very proud of me for serving our country. She encouraged me to work hard, be careful and look out for the people around me,” he says.

As Rick read her familiar words, he was transported back to the farmhouse kitchen, watching his mother write letters to young soldiers half a world away.

“For a brief and misty moment, I was back at the time-worn table, looking on as my mother shared the details of the letters she wrote to young American soldiers in Vietnam,” Rick recalls.

He read the letter again and again in the days that followed.

“And as I began to memorize her words and commit them to heart, I gradually came to a realization,” Rick says. “I was going to be OK.”

With time, Rick found his footing—learning the ship, the mission and his role within it. The lessons his mother lived by had come full circle.

Today, Rick brings that same sense of responsibility and care to his work at FPL, helping support the safe, reliable delivery of electricity that millions of customers across Florida depend on every day. The example his mother set, rooted in consistency, accountability and a deep commitment to serving others, continues to guide him in a role where customers are counting on him every day.

This Mother’s Day, Rick remembers Patricia not only as his mom, but as a reminder of simple kindness—and the strength found in words written with love.

“Miss you, Mom.”