JAN 5, 2019 – This weekend, many of us will be penning our post-Christmas thank you notes. Personally, I’ve always considered this little ritual an opportunity to savor all the sweet gifts and kind gestures I received all over again. I also know just how powerful getting a simple, heartfelt thank you can sometimes be …
Thirteen Christmasses ago, I arranged for my sister’s family to come cross-country to spend the holidays with my mother and me. At 82, my mom was Cardthartic’s original Fairy Cardmother, the unstoppable force who lived in the building next door. We had a great Christmas and, a week after our guests headed home — 13 years ago today — I found Mom on the floor of her kitchen. She’d suffered a stroke.
I was allowed in the ambulance with her, and got to stay by her side in the ER for those long nine hours she was parked on a gurney through the night. When she was finally given a room in the afternoon, I slipped home to shower and walk my poor dog. On the way in, I picked up my mail, and found this note from my mother.
Remember now, she lived right next door. She’d thanked me “for a wonderful Christmas” profusely in person. And by phone. And email. But, when it came to making sure a person felt truly seen and appreciated, my Fairy Cardmother firmly believed in notes — carefully written, stamped and mailed.
Mom died peacefully a few weeks later. On the little desk in her kitchen, I’d found the open box of note cards she was writing, along with a roll of stamps, her pen on the floor where she’d fallen.
I’ve often thought, what a powerful legacy to leave me … the lasting reminder of just how meaningful expressing our appreciation on paper can be. I’ll never again be able to sit and talk books with my mother, or hear her nightly phoned-in, “Good night!” Her prolific emails? Long gone. But that note, in her handwriting, with her little signature mouse … it makes me feel like she’s sitting right here next to me.
~ jodee stevens
founder & chief creative
