• Gabe Semenza •
• Originally published November 30, 2008 at 12:05 a.m., updated November 30, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

The view out Kathy Alexander's kitchen window became less painful.

Since Mother's Day, she looked toward her 31-acre pasture to spot the deer. Or she'd stare to the comforting dust, kicked loose by her busy husband's tractor.

For the past week, though, the kitchen blinds remained closed.

Alexander's husband, 55-year-old David Alexander, died Nov. 20. While digging a stock pond, he tipped his tractor on the steep grade. The man's most loyal dog stayed with him until the wife found him pinned, dead.

On Wednesday - the night before Thanksgiving - 15 coworkers gave Alexander two reasons to look to the future, and once again to that pasture, with hope and happiness.

Her fellow U.S. Post Office letter carriers installed a deer feeder and planted a pear tree. Each gift has a story.

The day before Mother's Day, David Alexander found a fawn abandoned in his pasture. Worried the fawn would die alone, he brought it home to his wife of 36 years.

Kathy Alexander, 53, fell in love with the baby deer. She fed it milk, covered it with a jacket and cradled it as she once did her only child, Corina Turner.

"Neither of my parents are hunters," Turner, 36, said. "They love all kinds of animals."

That night six months ago, 20 deer gathered in the couple's pasture. Eyes glowed against the flashlight's glare. "It was like they were looking for their baby," Alexander said.

She walked toward the small herd, bent to lay the fawn in the grass and returned to her porch. The fawn reunited with its mother.

The couple spread corn in the pasture each night and watched from the porch as the deer returned.

After Alexander's husband died, she stopped spreading the corn.

"When my mom found my dad, she was going out to feed the deer for him," Turner said.

Knowing the pain Alexander linked with feeding those deer, R.J. Johnson and Tim Castner gathered fellow letter carriers.

"We take care of our own," Castner said. "She's fallen on some hard times. I've lost my parents and some close ones. Holidays are real bad. We weren't going to let her down."

Johnson said, "Like a fallen soldier, we're a family."

Coworkers offered Alexander food, kind words, company and a Bible. Then they installed a deer feeder.

"We knew she wasn't going to go back there every day and feed them like he did," Johnson said. "We didn't want her walking out in the pasture at night. This way, she can sit on her deck and watch the deer. We're trying to make it normal for her. Anything she needs done, she can call us."

As coworkers know, Alexander can be called anything but a green thumb.

"It's cute. She's not too good with plants. We thought we'd give her a tree and let Mother Nature take care of it for her," Johnson said.

On Wednesday, one car after another pulled into her home, Alexander said. Victoria coworkers planted the pear tree on the edge of the tree line not far from where David Alexander died. One of two grandchildren planted a cross at the tree's base.

Alexander's view to the pasture will eventually bloom.

"It meant the world. They have been wonderful to my mother," Turner said. "That, to me, means everything. Hopefully, this will be a bright spot for her."

Alexander insisted this story focus on her coworkers' generosity. Unable to sleep, Alexander is writing late-night thank-you cards to all who've reached out. Words eluded her for these gestures, though.

"I don't know how to say thank you to these people. They didn't have to do this," Alexander said. "They showed up at my door and said, 'What do you need?' I just want the people of Victoria to know how lucky they are to have these guys. Now I open the blinds and I know David would love that tree. He'd be happy to know his deer are being fed."

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