Thank You Note...

I read this article in Good Housekeeping. It is adapted from the book "The End of Your Life Book Club" by Will Schwalbe. The Year of Almost No Christmas...when it came to respecting others, our mother drew a clear line between naughty and nice..by Will Schwalbe. The 2008 holiday season was shaping up to be a sad one for me--one year before, my mother had been diagnosed with stave IV pancreatic cancer and age 73, and it was clear this would probably be her last Christmas. For Mom, though, the season was filled with joy. Since her diagnosis, I'd been thinking a lot about the way Mom acknowledged people. Everyone who came into her chemo cubicle got a warm look-you-in-the eye greeting or thank you--the nurse who brought the juice, or remembered the pillow Mom liked under her arm. The same went for doctors and security staff. The thank-you thing had been drummed into us when we were growing up. When someone dropped off a gift in the mail, your not was expected to bounce right back out of the mailbox. As kids, we'd hated that task, but when I saw Mom bean as she thanked the people at the hospital, I realized what she'd been trying to tell us all along. That there's great joy in thanking. In our family, the holidays were a big deal, but not without stress. I remember vividly the year when I turned 8. As always, Mom was seated in an armchair by the fire, her legs tucked up underneath her, reading the Nativity story to my brother and sister and me before bed: "And so it came to pass that in those days there went a decree from Caesar Augustus...." And then one of us started to giggle. Mom kept reading. Another of us started, then the third. We knew we shouldn't and thought we couldn't help ourselves. We weren't laughing at anything in particular--just from high spirits, silliness, anticipation. And then we weren't. The Bible was slammed closed. "Maybe this year there won't be a Christmas," Mom said, severely. There was indeed a Christmas, but I recall an extremely anxious night--not just over presents, but over genuine regret at having ruined Christmas Eve and fear of the the rare anger we'd brought out in our mother. When my sister and I analyzed this as adults, we came to some conclusions: Mom was not a big fan of silliness. She thought that even small children needed to be taught that the written word, on the page or read aloud, was to accorded utmost respect. As usual, throughout the 2008 season, Mom gave a lot of presents to everyone, including bags made by Burmese refuges to the staff at the hospital. For me, she and Dad had chosen vintage Stueben low-ball glasses for the Dewar's I liked to drink at cocktail time. When I sat down to write my parents a thank-you letter--not on Christmas afternoon, but soon after--I found it more difficult than I'd anticipated: I wanted to thank them for so much more than the glasses that each draft sounded more than the glasses that each draft sounded more and more like a eulogy for my mother. And yet how many more chances would I have to thank her for what she'd done for me and taught me and given me? As I struggled to finish this letter, what I suddenly realized was that a thank-you not isn't the price you pay for a gift, a kind of minimum toll, but an opportunity to remind yourself of how you are blessed. The funny thing was, the more I thought back on all the blessings, the more grateful I felt and the less sad. I pulled out a fresh piece of paper and began anew: "Dear Mom and Dad, I am so lucky...." Ria's Notes: The part that got to me the most was it shouldn't be a chore to write a thank-you, but the opportunity to remind yourself how blessed you are! Merry Christmas!