Following Mom's Advice

My mom always liked to give books as gifts.  She often gave inspirational books and she had one rule about her gift books.

They always contained a handwritten message to the recipient.  When I turned 42, this book was wrapped up and placed in a box with 41 additional little packages.  I remember the fun I had opening each gift.  I couldn't tell you what was in any of the packages, but I remember the book "42 Gifts I'd Like To Give You." 

It would be unheard of for anybody in our household to give a book without that personal message included.  This is a book that my dad gave to me on my 12th birthday.

Complete with loving words from a father to his daughter. 

As a kid I sometimes thought this rule was silly.  After all, my friends didn't have to do it and I wasn't so sure that I wanted to either.

But, I went along with it because that was the way it was done at our house.

Just before my dad turned 70, he had to have quadruple bypass surgery.  He lived in Tennessee and I was in Michigan at the time.  One day I received this book in the mail.

His surgery was a very sudden thing and gave us all a bit of a scare.  His words to me in the front of this book were very precious to me and I began to realize that my mom's rule for writing in the front of books might not be such a bad idea after all.

She also liked to write little notes on the back of bookmarks and include them in cards and letters.

I'm so glad she did.  When I took this one out of a book I was reading the other day, I flipped it over to find this.  I miss you too, Mom.

This bookmark was in another book I was reading recently.  As you can see my sister learned well too.

Last week I received this book as a birthday gift from my sister.  I was very touched to think that she was even able to send a gift.  If you are new to my blog I will mention that my sister had a massive stroke last June.  It left her paralyzed on her right side and unable to speak.  She is working very hard to recover, but it is a slow process.  Any kind of communication that we are able to have is a gift in itself.

Knowing how hard it is for her to write, these are words that I will always cherish.  And the message on this page speaks volumes for the person that Norma is.  She is the type of person that can do just about anything she makes up her mind to do.  She always preferred to do the type of work that would help others.  She is not only a good mother to her 2 sons, but she has been a teacher to hearing impaired children, an assistant principal in a private school, Sunday school director at her church, college professor and most recently she had gone back to college to earn her master's degree in psychology and had opened a practice as a therapist for children. 

All those years ago when my mom was teaching us her little rule, I never would have thought that a few words from the heart could mean so much.  My how times have changed.