Dear Patti,

It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, and this letter is long overdue. I’m living with no regrets, going back and filling in the blanks. So today, I want to thank you for all you did for me, my husband, and our baby boy.

I’m still grateful that our friends, your son and daughter-in-law, knew you had room to care for one more child in your home. They suggested you as an option when we announced we were looking for child care. When I brought our first born baby boy for a visit at your house just weeks after birth, I knew right away he’d be in good hands. From that moment on, I felt much more comfortable about this day care world with which I was completely unfamiliar.

Before I knew it, twelve weeks had passed, my maternity leave had come to an end. I was due back at a full-time job as a speech-language pathologist, and I’ll be honest, I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.

You see, my mom worked full-time my entire life. I know it was stressful for her to work and be a mom of three, but she definitely seemed to manage. So I spent a lifetime ASSUMING that I, too, would maintain a full-time career when I had kids. Working part-time or staying at home were not options I’d considered.

Little did I know, I’d experience a rude awakening when I went back to work after my first baby was born. I spent the first year and a half of my baby boy’s life working full-time. It didn’t take me long to realize I really didn’t want to work full-time, at all. Considering I’d spent a lifetime assuming I would work full-time like my mom, this revelation was a surprise, a bend in the road I definitely hadn’t expected. So I spent that year and a half more stressed out than not about my work-life balance, wishing I could cut back, but knowing it wasn’t financially feasible…yet.

I’ll never forget, after I had worked full-time for a year and a half, God blessed my husband with a raise that was exactly the amount of money we’d need for me to stay home 1 day/week. Believe it or not, his raise was exactly 1/5 of my income. So I took a .8 position (4 days/week) and have worked part-time ever since. I’ve worked the whole range of outside of the home employment. 1-2-3-4-5 days a week, I’ve tried it all except being a full-time stay at home mom.

I’ve gotten a little sidetracked with the back story, but I shared all of this with you for a reason, Patti.

I want you to know that your your love and care for our baby son that year and a half was incredibly appreciated. I’m sure there were days I left your house crying as I pulled away and our baby son was standing at your door. But when I think of you, when I think of the time our son spent at your house, all I think of is GOOD. You were loving, you were kind, and you kept our son safe and secure in your warm, comfortable, and always welcoming home. You provided age-appropriate stimulation of his development, were consistent about nap and bottle schedules, and always ensured he got plenty of fresh air. Your communication with us was just right. But most of all, it was your love, your heartfelt care for our son, that I appreciated so much. The truth is, it felt more like I was bringing him to “grandma’s house” than daycare.

So thank you for being a rock for our family that year and a half. I couldn’t have made it through those days without you. The comfort I experienced, knowing our baby son was in your loving care while I worked full-time, was tremendous. While I was battling this full-time gig, working and waiting for the day I could cut back, you were there. Steady, stable, ready to love, ready to care, always there. And for that, I’ll be eternally grateful.

Counting every day we had with you as a blessing,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!

Dear Selmer & Anita,

I savored the moments we had. Our time together was precious, sacred. You were my husband’s grandparents, so I didn’t get a lifetime with you, but I treasure the years I got. The imprint you left on my heart is irreplaceable, the legacy you left, undeniable.

You demonstrated the fruit of the Spirit like no other. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control flowed from your lives. Neither of you ran short of a single one.

Selmer, you were kind, funny, and wise. You were a man of unwavering faith that stood the test of time through all your years as pastor. Seth and I had the great blessing of being married by you, and two out of our three children were baptized by you. My heart sank when I realized our third child would be the only one NOT baptized by you. What beautiful gifts you gave. Thank you so much. When it was time for you to go, Seth and I were privileged to visit you in the most beautiful hospice house I’ve ever seen. It was warm and welcoming, and peace was present in a way I can still call up today. Your family sang over you, and we talked as if you heard every word we said. We hugged and kissed you one last time. Tears of sadness and joy streamed as we walked out of the room, knowing your passing to the eternity you so firmly believed in, was drawing near.

Anita, you were dignified, lovely, and gracious. You were a woman of faith, a quiet but steadfast faith. You graced the room with your presence, made your way around a small crowd effortlessly, and knew how to make a person feel comfortable under any circumstance. Christmas and birthday cards arrived adorned with your delicate, precise, and beautiful handwriting. And your lemon meringue? It was to die for, the best I’ve ever had. Sweet delights were plentiful in your house, ready to be pulled out at a whim when we dropped by any Saturday afternoon. You rolled cookies and lefse paper thin, the first bite of either, a moment we all reveled in. My maternal grandmother passed when I was 10, my paternal grandmother passed in my first year of college, just weeks after Seth and I started dating the spring of 1995. And I met you in the fall of 1995 – your entrance into my life was perfectly timed. My two biological grandmothers had passed, but I was blessed with a third, you, who I happily called grandma.

But there’s more to your story than baptisms, lemon meringue, beautiful home-goings, and Christmas cards adorned with delicate handwriting.

Yes, Selmer and Anita, the most precious gift you gave was your model of marriage. Bound by faith, you were living examples of what it means to love and respect. Your commitment to one another was unwavering. You proved all the statisticians wrong when you fulfilled your promise ’till death do us part, and made us believe it really is possible to have love that lasts a lifetime.

Thank you for helping us believe when the world wants us to doubt.

So Seth and I would like to model our marriage after yours. Our dream, to pass along your legacy of loving, committed marriage that lasts a lifetime – for our children, for our grandchildren, for our great-grandchildren and beyond.

Grandma snuggles in tight. She rests two fingers quietly on her husband’s belt. Grandpa stands proudly next to his grandson and granddaughter-in-law for a picture. Their first great-grandbaby is due to arrive in three short months; their daughter’s behind the camera, and her husband watches from the sidelines, smiling. The story is being written, it’s a beautiful passing of the torch from one generation to the next.

In loving memory,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!

Dear Rachel,

I arrived on the scene as a newbie. It was my first job out of graduate school, and everyone else on our early intervention team was at least 15 years older than me. I quickly discovered that there was a wealth of wisdom and knowledge to gain from women who had been in the field much longer than me. I was fortunate, really, to have started my career with such wise and experienced colleagues. I’m not sure how I lucked out, but I landed a desk next to you! Rachel, master speech-language pathologist, early interventionist. You’re the one that guided me through that first year when our caseloads were sky high, you’re the one that convinced me I really didn’t have to do a lesson plan for every single therapy visit, you’re the one who taught me to be creative and think outside the box. You’re the one who modeled passion. You stood confident in your beliefs about what was best for families and children with disabilities, and because of you, I learned to speak up and stand confident as a professional.

Seven years later, the part-time leave of absence I’d taken to be home more with my kids ran out, so I was told I’d need to return to a full-time contract. You’re the one that guided me through that reality. You supported my decision to leave and begin my own private practice. While there were no guarantees, and you and others were sad to see me go, you believed I would be successful. Since I left and began my private practice more than six years ago now, you’ve checked in regularly and reassured me I could go any which way with the practice. You’ve listened to my doubts, my fears, my uncertainties, my questions – more than once. You’ve kept me grounded in little doses of reality, yet you’ve made me feel strong, worthy, capable of anything. You’ve consistently sought my council and feedback on things that matter to you, and that’s meant a lot to me.

You’ve been a colleague and you’ve been a mentor, but you’ve also been a friend. A friend 20-21 years older than me, sure, but a wise friend indeed. We’re well matched, the two of us, in a ying and yang sort of way! You’re the first person I saw demonstrate real passion in their personal and professional life. I needed to know more about that passion. I needed to see that passion in action. We’ve laughed together and we’ve engaged in conversation as if we’re age peers. You shared your grad school buddies and let me in on the fun year after year at the national convention. You’ve never made me feel less than because I was younger or had less experience, and you’ve always given me the freedom to be myself.

For all these things, for all these years, I’m grateful.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!

Dear Brittany,

I’ll never forget the smile on your face, the way you peered deeply, kindly, into my soul. You were a friend I could count on to listen, to care. Whether we were talking about a paper we needed to complete, or our loved ones back home, you always gave me your full attention. The slight tilt of your head and the way you nodded at just the right time indicated you really wanted to know, you really wanted to hear, you really were concerned. You made me feel like there wasn’t anyone else in the world you’d rather be talking to at that moment.

And you were so, so sweet.

Have you ever met someone so sugary sweet you actually thought for a moment it couldn’t possibly be true? There’s no way a person could ever be that sweet. There’s no way a person could be that kind. There’s no way a person could be that gracious, that lovely, that pure, that real. But time marches on, and after repeated interactions with the individual, you discover there’s no facade. There’s not one ounce of putting on, pretending, make-believing the sweetness. It’s authentic, it’s real. You’ve found a hidden treasure, a diamond in the rough. You’d do anything to grab ahold of that sweetness and bottle it up for a lifetime.

Brittany, there’s one thing I know for sure. You’re the real deal.

In 37 years, I’ve only met one other person as genuinely sweet as you. I was truly blessed by your presence in my life those two years of graduate school.

I pray you feel loved as much as you made me feel loved. I pray you feel cared for as much as you cared for me. I pray you’ve found someone who will listen to you as much as you listened to me. And I pray you have someone who tends your heart, who pays careful attention to your needs, just as much as you tended to me.

Bless your heart, sweet friend. I remember you fondly, and will consider it a gift, a pure privilege when our paths cross again.

Sincerely,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!

Dear Dr. Gierut:

Indiana University was ranked 7th in the nation for its Speech and Hearing Sciences graduate program in 1998, the year I began working towards my graduate degree in speech-language pathology there. Perhaps I’ve gone overboard with my inclusion of paperwork from your graduate level courses, but I included it intentionally because it tells a story. A story of you, a brilliant professor. A professor who without a doubt elevated the status and reputation of Indiana University’s Speech and Hearing Sciences program, both internally and externally. I completed graduate school 13 years ago, and have held you in the highest regard since.

You entered the room with authority and dignity. Your tailored suits, clean-lined sweater sets, short dark hair, and glasses that rested perfectly on your nose fit your personality to a T. You were a petite woman, but there was no messing with you. Absolutely none. We knew you meant business, and you commanded our attention, our dedication to the science of speech.

No doubt about it, you were a scientist. Highly regarded, your work was published too many times for the average Joe to count. It seemed you always had a paper “in press,” about to be published. I knew it was an honor to be under your instruction, and to this day, I still consider your instruction a once in a lifetime gift.

The way the words spilled out of your mouth so eloquently proved your brilliance. Place of production and manner of production were your basics. Nasals, stops, fricatives, affricates, liquids, and glides? They were a given. Same goes for bilabial, alveo-palatal, labio-dental and the like. But before I knew it, things became much more complicated. Extremely complex words and concepts came spewing out of your mouth, like ambient, coronal, major class distinctions, nonmajor class distinctions, contrastiveness, distinctive features, phone trees, monovalent features, inventory constraints, positional constraint, maximal opposition, free variation, and complementary distribution. You expected us to know it all, and we did.

The expectation you held for us, your graduate students, was absolute excellence. There was no way we were going to pass your class unless we studied our brains out. We were all a bunch of wild and crazy overachievers the way it was, but we’d become studying maniacs in the days leading up to exams in your class. I vividly recall being among the last to complete your exams. Your brilliance and knowledge of the field inspired me tremendously, so I studied as hard as I could and wanted to show what I knew. But clearly, I was slower to process than the rest of the fast-thinking men and women in class, so I trotted along at my own pace. Thank goodness you and your doctoral assistant didn’t make me feel like an absolute idiot when I was second to last or last to turn in my exam.

It’s been 13 years since I completed graduate school and earned my master’s degree in speech-language pathology. Those were the most intellectually taxing years of my life, and your classes were the most academically challenging by a landslide. As students, we were gifted with a wealth of knowledge from your teaching. The impact you made on me as a student, as well as a professional was tremendous. The theories and treatment methods you taught are applicable to this day. Although I’ve forgotten much of the detail, the basic foundations of your teachings have remained intact and have had far-reaching positive impacts on my 13+ year career treating children with speech and language disorders.

When I look through the paperwork from your courses, 13 years after graduation, here’s the heart of what I see. I see a professor dedicated to her career. I see a woman who LOVED her work. I see a brilliant mind, able to deconstruct sounds and words like no other. I see a woman who took extravagant care to tend to every detail. I see a professor who wanted to bring out the very best in her students (and did just that). I see a woman who gave it her all, exerted maximum effort, fulfilled her potential and beyond. I see you. A woman of integrity and excellence. A woman worthy of these words of praise and gratitude.

So thank you Dr. Gierut. The admiration I have for you in my heart hasn’t been completely captured with the words I’ve shared today, but I want you to know you made an impression that will last a lifetime. You’re going down as my most favorite, inspiring, and brilliant professor of all time.

Sincerely,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!