An Open Letter To My Parents

Mama & Daddy,
It’s hard to know what to say on an occasion like this. How does one sum up fifty years of marriage – or even just the thirty-nine years that I’ve been lucky enough to witness?

”Thanks for getting married and making me,” sounds a little trite but, yeah, that’s kind of a big one for me, so thanks for that.

More importantly, though, thank you for not only helping to make me who I am, but for always making it okay for me to be who I am.

Thank you for always telling and, more importantly, showing me that I could be or do anything I set my mind to.

Thank you for supporting my choices and decisions in life, whether or not they might have been what you would have chosen for me at the time.

Thank you for encouraging me to take chances and to follow my dreams. It’s so much easier to take a leap of faith, when I know that you will be there to catch me if I fall.

Thank you for listening when I needed to talk, for talking when I needed to listen, and for knowing the difference.

I know that sometimes I take these things for granted, until I am reminded how many people have parents who are not as supportive or as encouraging or as accepting, and I realize how truly lucky I am.

I read somewhere that, “Good parents give their children roots; great parents give their children wings.”

You have given me both and, as I consider becoming a parent myself, I only hope that I can live up to the example that you’ve set.

Happy Anniversary.

I love you,
Whozat