To my parents,
Thank you for everything you have done for me over the past 23 years, for helping me become the kind of person who can move to another country just because. For helping me become the kind of person who knows home is who and what you carry with you while you're away, and for helping me remember that there's always a place to come back to if nothing else works. Thank you for encouraging me that things will work.
I've been an au pair for less than a month, and already I see so much more clearly how much parents do and sacrifice for their children. And already I see that I have no idea. Thank you for the choices you made on my behalf, so that I could have the best and do my best. Thank you for your sacrifices in spite of my times of selfishness, for you kindness in spite of my times of cruelty. Thank you for loving me when I wasn't lovely and for your patience when I was impossible. Thank you for all the things I never noticed, and especially, thank you for the things I hated that you knew were for the best. Thank you for disciplining me with words rather than force, and for doing it well. I see now, so often, how difficult certain points in my life must have been for you, and I appreciate greatly your handling of those times. Thank you for, without even realizing it, setting me up to be successful in this season.
Thank you for choosing each other, for choosing love, for choosing to create the kind of home that builds a real family. Thank you for being a team, for being on each other's side, and for never making me question your devotion to each other, to my brother, and to me. There is so much you have taught me that I've seen, that I'm beginning to see, that I know I will see in the future; thank you for all of it, and above everything else, thank you for your unconditional care, support, and love throughout each day of my life.
Sometimes words fail, and even these don't do your hearts justice. Happy Anniversary; your marriage has been one of my greatest treasures.
I love you, Mom and Dad.
Thank You for such a letter.....though it's hard to reply through tears....:-) We're lucky to have built such a family and such a life. Love you, too!
ReplyDeleteI have been so very proud of my daughter - for the woman she has become, and the wife & mother that she is, and Richard - for his wisdom and understanding, and for being such a good father - and especially for building such a successful marriage; your letter to them only increases that for me. They are a wonderful model in so many ways ! And so I know that your marriage, when it comes, will be a strong one, too, and a blessing to many, as theirs has been and continues to be - myself definitely included.
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