Cardthartic

General information

Our company name is a play on the word “cathartic,” that freeing feeling that comes from getting strong, often long-held emotions out in the open. The name came to me in the spring of 1992 ... having grown as much as I thought I was going to doing public relations, I’d just sold my Chicago PR agency. The plan was to move to Italy. Then we learned Dad was dying.

Every few days through several long months, I’d scribble all my hopes, wishes and memories into blank cards to my father. Into those cards I poured all the things I still had time to say to this much-loved man ~ sometimes laughing, more times crying, as I did.

One night, after a major card-writing-while- wailing jag, I sat back ~ completely spent ~ and sighed, “Whew. What a cardthartic experience!” It cracked me up to think what my plain-spoken Midwest farmer father would say to a crazy made-up word like that, and I must have tucked it away somewhere deep inside. When Dad sadly passed away that summer, the cards my siblings and I received were amazing.

Actually, the cards themselves were pretty awful, but the personal messages penned by people who clearly loved our father were beautiful, simple and profound. Written as they were by ordinary people ~ not trained writers, I mean ~ made the sentiments all the more extraordinary.

Reading those touching notes, the marketer in me couldn't help but wonder, "Why doesn't anyone publish genuine messages like there?!?" Having sold my PR firm and stayed in the States, I had to ask, "Hmm ... why don't I?!?" And Cardthartic came to be. Every day, I sense Dad is very proud.

~ jodee stevens
founder & creative director