Letter from Nancy Reagan

I’m honored to have received a letter from Nancy Reagan and humbled by the fact that time was taken on her behalf to respond to me because I sent her a scarf.  Thank you. 

Letter from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sent me a letter thanking me for sending her a scarf.  She even hand wrote a personal note at the bottom of the letter.  I was touched, to say the least!

Letter from Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor sent me a letter thanking me for sending her a scarf.  Wow!

A Very Special E-mail

December 14, 2007 and I received a very special e-mail from my sister-in-law, Kathy.  In her message she says that she was reading this speech and it reminded her of me and how I have put my priorities in order!  She says "I appreciate you and am thankful you are with my brother and in our family!"

The speech was attached:  This was a speech made by Pulizer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.

"I’m a novelist.  My work is  human nature.  Real life is all I know.  Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work.  You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has.  There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree and there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living.  But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.  Your particular life.  Your entire life.  Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer.  Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart.  Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.  People don’t talk a bout the soul very much anymore.  It’s so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit.  But a resume is cold comfort on a winter’s night or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you’ve received your test results and they’re not so good.

Here is my resume:  I am a good mother to three children.  I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent.  I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe.  I show up.  I listen.  I try to laugh.  I am a good friend to my husband.  I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say.  I am a good friend to my friends and they to me.  Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out.  But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch.  I would be rotten, at best  mediocre at my job if those other things were not true.  You cannot be really first  rate at your work if your work is all you are.  So here’s what I wanted to tell you today:

Get a life.  A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house.  Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm this afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?  Get a life in which you notice the small of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.  Get a life in which you are not alone.

Find people you love, and who love you.  And remember that love is not leisure, it is work.  Pick up the phone.  Send an e-mail.  Write a letter.  Get a life in which you are generous.  And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted.  Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around.  Take money you would have spent on beer and giveit to charity.  Work in a soup kitchen.  Be a big brother or sister.  All of you want to do well.  But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.  It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes.  It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again.  It is so easy to exist instead of to live.  I learned to live many years ago.  I learned to love the journey, not the destination.  I learned that is it not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.  I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back bevause I believed in it, completely and utterly.  And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned.  By telling them this:  Consider the  lilies of the field.  Look at the fuzz  on a  baby’s ear.  Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.  Learn to be happy.  And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live with joy and passion as it ought to be lived."

It was the best birthday present I received that day.  Thank you, Kathy!

A Beautiful Lady!

Today, December 19, 2007, I learned that Patricia Herron passed away from breast cancer.  She was 45 years old and was also a pink scarf recipient.

In my scrapbook I have the card she sent thanking me for the scarf. She says:  My friend, Deb Volk, told me about the article in The Tribune and the beautiful scarves you make for people like me.  I have received many wonderful compliments each time I wear it.  My neck often gets cold and I reach for your scarf for its fuzzy warmth plus it’s so pretty!  I am responding well to my chemo treatments and look forward to going into remission again.  I have an excellent family and friend support team that have kept me strong and positive – for that I am grateful.  Keep up your wonderful work.  I apreciate your beautiful gift.  Thank you so much.

I had the pleasure of meeting Pattie at last year’s Relay for Life Survivors Banquet.  She wanted to have her picture taken with me and her pink scarf.  Her wish was granted that evening and I enjoyed the time I had to visit with her.

Pattie, you will be missed!

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