DEAR ABBY: I am a volunteer at the local hospital, and I deliver the "get well" cards to hospital patients. Here are some suggestions to ensure that the cards are delivered to the patients without delay.

-- Be sure to put your name and return address on the envelope. This helps the patients determine whether or not the card is meant for them. Also, if the patient has gone home, or died, we are able to return the card to the sender. (Today we had two women with the same first name, middle initial and last name. One woman opened all six cards, and four of them were for the other patient.)

-- When addressing the cards, use the patient's given name ("Mary L. Jones") not a nickname ("Sissy Jones") or her husband's name ("Mrs. John Jones"). Also, do not use room numbers; patients frequently change rooms.

Last week we received a card for "Buddy." We also had a "Charles E. ----" listed, and all his cards were addressed to "Ed," "Eddie" and "Edward."

-- Please write clearly and do not use the entire face of the envelope for the address. If the patient has been released, we must mark through the hospital address and squeeze the home address on the card.

-- And last, but not least, if a patient is in the hospital for a long time, send cards at frequent intervals. -- NAOMI D. TRENARY, WINCHESTER, PA.

DEAR NAOMI: Thank you for the suggestions, which everyone should heed. Greeting cards can boost a person's flagging spirit -- but only if they are received by those for whom they are intended.

DEAR ABBY: Last Friday, some friends and I went to a nightclub to listen to the band and have a drink. Shortly after I arrived, a very attractive man asked me to dance. (I'll call him Bill.) We hit it off immediately, and he asked if I was married. I told him I wasn't, and he said, "That's great -- neither am I." I invited him to sit at our table, and I found him to be a really neat guy.

At the end of the evening, Bill said his ride home had left, so I gave him a ride home. He told me his roommate had guests over and he didn't want to intrude, so we parked in front of his place and talked and kissed for nearly two hours. When we finally said goodbye, we had spent four beautiful hours together.

Before leaving, I gave him my phone number with high hopes of hearing from him. (He gave me no phone number.)

A few days later, a friend who had been at the club when I first met Bill told me that Bill is a married man who lives with his wife and four children. Abby, I was shocked. If he calls me, what should I say? -- SHOCKED IN FRESNO

DEAR SHOCKED: Tell him that you learned that he is married, and you have no time for married men. Then say goodbye!

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DEAR ABBY: My husband and I are separating after six years of marriage. I am 31 and he is 33. After months of discussion and many sessions with a marriage counselor, we came to realize that we had no common goals. (He initiated the idea of separation after expressing a desire to be on his own again.)

I have cried, bargained and offered to compromise, but his mind is made up; he wants his independence. I refuse to commit emotional blackmail or entrap him with a pregnancy to continue the marriage. Therefore, I have decided the best thing to do is let him go. It hurts, but this way we can part as friends and get on with our lives.

Our problem: how to explain this to our families, friends and co-workers who have always viewed us as the "perfect couple." We rarely fought. We trusted each other, supported each other's careers, shared the work and had fun together. No one would suspect that we've been talking about separating for the past four months. It will be a shock to our families and a total surprise to everyone else.

Abby, we want to be truthful and call it a mutual decision, but I know people will look for something more scandalous than incompatibility as soon as this spreads via the grapevine.

How do we maximize understanding and minimize rumor fallout? -- D.J., ILLINOIS

DEAR D.J.: First, announce it to your parents, then inform other family members and friends. To minimize rumors flying, present a united front. The message should be along these lines: "'Sam' and I have agreed to end our marriage. Although it may come as a surprise to all of you, this decision is mutual. Even though we care for each other, we have decided that we no longer want to be husband and wife. Please don't press us further because we both would rather not go into details at this time."

If anyone is so insensitive as to question you further, simply say, "We'd rather not discuss it right now."

Good luck to both of you ... wherever your separate paths may take you.

DEAR ABBY: My youngest brother-in-law is getting married this spring. We live on opposite sides of the country, but we are expected to come to this wedding. We simply can't afford to go as a family. My husband thinks he should go anyway, even though his wife and kids can't. I disagree with him; I say if we can't all go, then none of us should go.

I already know what the outcome is, but I would like to know what you think about this problem, and how would you resolve it?

I also know what the outcome would be were it someone in my family getting married. I'd tell them flat out that we cannot afford to go to the wedding, then we would send them a gift and our best wishes.

Am I being selfish, Abby? Or is my husband? -- FEELING ABANDONED

DEAR FEELING ABANDONED: I do not agree that since all of you can't afford to go to the wedding, nobody should go. Since your husband's youngest brother is being married and you can't afford to go with him, I think your husband should go without you.

By the same token, if someone in your family were being married on the opposite side of the country, and both you and your husband could not afford to make the trip, you should go without him.

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DEAR ABBY: My husband underwent multiple bypass surgery a year ago, and he's rapidly falling back into his old habits of working too long and too strenuously. I'm afraid he is soon going to be back to the state of health he was in when he got that heart attack.

He is in his late 50s and is still a workaholic. He is holding down two full-time jobs and, being the perfectionist he is, he tries to excel at both. Forget exercise. He has a stationary bicycle at the foot of his bed that he's had for two years, and it's as good as new.

The reason I'm writing is that some of my friends have told me that you had a poem in your column titled "Slow Me Down, Lord," and I would like to get a copy so I can have it blown up and framed and hung over his desk. He has promised that if I get it for him, he will read it every day and try to slow down. Please? -- "SKEETER" IN SOUTH CAROLINA

DEAR "SKEETER": The poem was written by Wilferd A. Peterson, and I hope your husband can slow down long enough to read it. And here it is:

SLOW ME DOWN, LORD

Slow me down, Lord!

Ease the pounding of my heart

By the quieting of my mind.

Steady my harried pace

With a vision of the eternal reach of time.

Give me,

Amidst the confusions of my day,

The calmness of the everlasting hills.

Break the tensions of my nerves

With the soothing music of the sighing streams

That live in my memory.

Help me to know

The magical resoring power of sleep.

Teach me the art

Of taking minute vacations of slowing down to look at a flower;

To chat with an old friend or to make a new one;

To pat a stray dog;

To watch a spider build a web;

To smile at a child;

Or to read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day

That the race is not always to the swift;

That there is more to life than increasing its speed.

Let me look upward

Into the branches of the towering oak

And know that it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord,

And inspire me to send my roots deep

Into the soil of life's enduring values

That I may grow toward the stars

Of my greater destiny.

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