To: Nephew Coen
From: Ted
Re: Just because
Dear Coen,
I’ve been seeing pictures of you in fairly regular intervals
since your arrival in Texas on April 25th, 2015. It is apparent the move to Baltimore in early
June has agreed with you.
This letter is the third in what I hope will be a series that
you will be able to leaf through at your leisure when the time is right. The
first was written prior to your arrival in San Antonio, and the second just
after you got there.
By now you have had little over six months experience here
in the U.S. I’ve waited to write, because I did not want the correspondence to
be so frequently as to become overwhelming.
In these notes, I will try to do two things…one is to tell
you a little about me, and the second is to share something that I have learned
that has increased the quality of my life.
Today, however, I will simply say how delighted I am and how
fortunate you are to have come to this planet through the love, guidance and
protection of your mother and father. I must say, with all modesty and
pleasure, that you have picked your parents well!
From them you will learn the importance of faith, hard work,
modesty and honor. To you, growing up in this household, these things will seem
most natural, but what you learn under their care will carry and protect you throughout
your coming life. You will be given the protection you need to gain a good
education and moral instruction, which you will find as you get older, is not
so common as you might think.
Most importantly, you will know above all else that you are
loved and greatly cared for. They have
been charged with giving you the best of what they have, and there is little
doubt you get all they have to give.
I would like you to know you have come from pretty good stock. Your mother’s people were from Scotland on her grandmother’s side and
Austria on her grandfather’s. These second generation families made their homes
in Toronto Canada, where your great grandmother and great grandfather grew up,
met and married.
They immigrated to the United States bringing three
children…that would be your grandmother Nancy and her two siblings – Anne and
Ted – that would be me!
Your grandmother was, like her daughter, smart and rich in
the spirit of humanity. Your father, like his father before him, understands
the importance of quiet diligence and hard work.
Where do I fit into
any of this? Well, I have more than the good fortune to have come to this earth
in the family of your mother. Her mother was my sister, and for the record, a
better sister one could not have had.
I have the extremely good luck to be the fellow who will
come into your life from time to time…a fellow who, if I do this right, will be fun to be around. I hope you will look as forward
to seeing me as I will look forward to seeing you.
I will do my best to make whatever time we have together as
pleasant as it can be, after all I will come to you in small doses, that even
you might enjoy!!
Finally, I want to share with you something I learned from
my mother…gratitude!
She taught me to be grateful for life. In the years I was
privileged to live with her, she never failed to remind me that I had been a
gift to her. A gift she cherished and honored…a gift for which she had prayed
long and hard.
She was grateful God had given me to her, and she made sure
I understood how important it was. When I was younger, I did not understand the
depth of gratitude she felt. As I got older and had the chance to go out into
the world, I began to realize that it wasn’t she who should have been grateful
for me, but I for her and for all that she gave and sacrificed for her
favorite son…her only son…
I want you to know how grateful I am to have you become a
part of my life. I hope the day comes when you feel the same…
To the future…
- ted
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