I found myself at Target this afternoon buying “thank you” cards. And not just any thank you cards: thank you cards that can be sent from my dad to his friends as a sort of final thank you for all they’ve done for him.
Believe it or not, Hallmark doesn’t really have a card exactly for that.
In fact, most of the thank you cards are sort of light and fluffy. Nothing with the seriousness and weight deserved by a card being sent on such an occasion.
This all started this morning when my dad told me he wanted to get some things down on paper, so I grabbed a notebook and pen and sat down to dictate. It took him 15-20 minutes to get out that he wanted to send thank you cards (which he mistakenly called sympathy cards at first before correcting himself) and listed the people to whom he wanted to send them. I told him I’d get the cards and help him write the message and he could sign them, and that was that. So what else did he want to get down on paper? He was silent for a really long time, and I kept prodding and prompting him for what else, and finally I suggested we come back to it after he rested for a bit, and he nodded.
I got the cards. I have no idea how we’re going to manage to put a message together for all these people. I’m going to have to fill in the blanks, I imagine.
No one said this would be easy.
Sounds like a blank card with a calm picture is ideal. The whole thing is sad. 🙁
Yeah, I opted for three different designs. One says, on the front, “Gratitude is the memory of the heart. – Jean Baptiste Massieu” and a simple “thank you” on the inside. One says “Nothing reaches the heart but what is from the heart. – William Penn” and “Thank you for your kindness.” And one I selected for my dad to give his closest friend is blank on the inside, but on the front says “To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed– this can make life a garden. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.” My dad told me the other day that he and his close friend can sit in a room and say one word and know what the other is thinking, so I got teary-eyed when I saw this card.
oh, hon. i’m sorry.
one thing to keep in mind is that the cards can each say a lot of the same things. thank you for being my friend, for being there for me, you have been an important person in my life, i love you. i imagine that that is a lot of what he wants to tell people, or at least it’s a lot of what i hope that the people i love will know were i to be run over by a bus tomorrow.
It’s a lovely idea. But I’m sure it’s tough. All the spare good wishes and hugs I’ve got are headed your way.
Oh, that sounds impossibly difficult. I’m thinking of you.
-J
It is a lovely idea. When I get near the end, I sure hope I have the grace to be thinking of others like that.