The Thank You Notes That Were Never Sent

Thank you notes.
I write them.
Or I write them in my mind.
I actually enjoy writing thank you notes.
A must when I was growing up.
Gratitude expressed through the Art of writing.
A gift I enjoyed.
Sending cards.
Notes of encouragement.
Never a burden.
My desk is filled with piles of notes that I have written.
But never sent. . .

My college girls thank you notes from her High School Graduation are still in a pile in the cubby hole in the desk.

Our oldest farm boy was in the process of writing thank you notes.
He never finished.
I still have the notes.

Some I have passed on. Some I can not bear to part with.
I have the pile of cards I was supposed to write after mom died.
Then I started to write thank you notes after our oldest farm boy was called to Glory.
I sat in the dr’s office writing and writing; waiting for my farmer to have a cyst removed.
A cyst that turned to cancer.
The notes sat.
In the bag.
They’re still there.
Never sent.
Some notes I have passed on to the recipients.
4 years late.
But I gave them.
Many still there.

Today.
I am cleaning.

I have way too much stuff.

Everywhere.
So.much. paper.clutter.
I am tossing those cards.
The unwritten ones.
The ones that stare at me day after day in my room.
Accusing me for not writing notes.
A friend told me, after she lost her husband, she just wrote 5 a day.
I tried that.
The pressure too great.
With grief and cancer I could barely survive. 

Now it is almost 4 years since our world was rocked.
4 years since I should have written those thank you notes.
4 years I have carried the guilt and shame of not responding to people’s amazing generosity.
I have tried to pass forward the giving.
I can never repay or say thank you enough for all that was done for our family.
My gratitude for the love and caring we were shown could never be captured in a card.
Words.
Could never articulate the deep appreciation we all feel.
So that still leaves the thank you notes.
I put them in a box to be given away.
The standard cards given from the Funeral Home.
I have 3 sets of them.
Mom.
Elijah.
Dad.
I’m giving those stacks of cards away today.
I’m releasing myself from the burden of guilt.
I’m shouting it from here; to all.

THANK YOU!

Thank you for months of meals.
Nutritious meals that kept us going.
Thank you for taking my farmer to radiation, to the store, to auctions to places he needed to go.
Thank you for the endless sea of cards that have flooded my mailbox spurring me on each day.
For notes and flowers.
For bulb plantings that remind me each Spring of hope.
For contributions to our vehicle.
For wood.
For donations to the Elijah Todd Davis Memorial Fund.
For the 5 students that have been blessed by a scholarship because you gave.
For the countless others who will be helped by this Memorial Fund.
Thank you to the person/people who mow at the crash site.
I don’t even know who you are.
Thank you for the flags you place there and the cross.
Thank you for emails that tell me you are thinking of my red head.
Emails that remind me of the goodness of God.
For pictures you send of that oldest farm boy that I have never seen.
Thank you for grace.
Thank you for the stories you tell of your own journey.

Don’t be surprised if you receive a card from me that is 4 or 5 years old.
Don’t be surprised if you don’t.
Please know we know we have been deeply affected by the immense giving people possess.
When we could barely take a breath people breathed for us.
When we hardly knew what we needed; someone provided.
Please know it did not go unnoticed or taken for granted.

Thank you. 

I release this burden today.