2000-08-11 - 22:49:30
A CHRISTMAS EVE THANK YOU
Christmas presents come in all shapes and sizes, and all types and forms. One Christmas Eve I wrote this letter to my Aunt Francis. It was a Christmas present she always cherished. I was 25 years old, and I thanked her for her contribution to my life to that point. I’m glad I wrote it, and I am especially thankful to her once again for saving it for me to see again in that book of poetry she so cherished…
I open up my diary to you once again and ask you to read along with me these words of a 25-year-old nephew…
ON CHRISTMAS EVE I WROTE:
May you reflect with me upon the many priceless gifts that you’ve so lovingly and unselfishly given me to me over these past twenty-five years.
Thank you for when I was one for the gift of laughter;
Thank you for when I was two to have some one to walk towards;
Thank you for when I was three for the gift of curiosity and again when I was four for your hand on that cold Autumn day as we walked in the park;
Thank you for when I was five for sending me to school unafraid;
And when I was six, thank you for the encouragement in helping me to read;
When I was seven, I thank you for the Esterbrook fountain pen and for helping me to write;
Thanks you for when I was eight for the pilot’s wings that your boyfriend Frank gave you and at the same time for giving my imagination wings to fly;
Thank you for sitting up with me on New Year’s Eve when I was nine;
Thank you for when I was ten for treating me to be proper;
Thank you for when I was eleven and twelve. You helped me seek direction and purpose; and when I was thirteen for the facts of life to know that direction and purpose;
Thank you very much, especially, for the next troubled yeas for instilling in us an everlasting memory of our father; and thank you for when I was sixteen for telling me how very much like him I’ve become;
Thank you for college when I was seventeen and for the sweater you knitted me my for first day on campus;
Thank you for the guidance when I was eighteen and no longer a minor;
By the time I was nineteen, thank you for the seeds of ambition, courage, fortitude and creativity which at that time seemed my only chance for survival; and thank you for when I was twenty for helping me realize they were not my only virtues;
Thank you for when I was twenty-one for all the years past that helped to make me a man;
Thank you for when I was twenty-two and twenty-three. It was your words that helped me to endure hard times;
Thank you for when I was twenty-four for the memories of Christmas’s past;
And finally, but not lastly, thank you for when I was twenty-five for making me realize what a loving, unselfish Aunt I have -- And on behalf of the people to whom I will be able to give that love to as I grow older…
Merry Christmas.
Your loving Nephew,
Bobby
