Thought for the Day 11/26/2021
Friday Tale - Just a Letter
We were a group of friends in the midst of an
after-dinner conversation. Because Thanksgiving was just around the corner
and prosperity wasn't, we talked about what we had to be thankful for.
One of us said, "Well I, for one,
am grateful to Mrs. Wendt, an old school teacher who, 30 years
ago in a little West Virginia town, went out of her way to introduce me to the
works of the poet, Tennyson."
Then he launched into a colorful
description of Mrs. Wendt, a lovely little old lady who had been his high
school teacher and who evidently had made a deep impression on his life. She
had gone out of her way to awaken his literary interest and develop his gifts
of expression.
"And does this Mrs. Wendt know
that she made that contribution to your life?" someone put in.
"I'm afraid she doesn't. I
have been careless and have never, in all these years, told her either
face-to-face or by letter."
"Then why don't you write
her? It would make her happy if she is still living, and it might make you
happier, too. The thing that most of us ought to do is to learn to develop
the attitude of gratitude.
Now, all this is very poignant to me,
because Mrs. Wendt was my teacher and I was the fellow who hadn't
written. That friend's challenge made me see that I had accepted something
very precious and hadn't bothered to say thanks.
That very evening, I tried to
atone. On the chance that Mrs. Wendt, might still be living, I sat down
and wrote her what I call a Thanksgiving letter.
I reminded her that it was she who had
introduced my young mind to the works of Tennyson and Browning and others.
It took a couple of weeks for the Post
Office to search for Mrs. Wendt with my letter. It was forwarded from town
to town. Finally it reached her, and this is the handwritten note I had in
return. It began:
"My Dear Willie,"
The introduction itself was quite enough
to warm my heart. Here I was, a man of 50, fat and bald, addressed as
"Willie." I had to smile over that, and then I read on:
"I remember well your enthusiasm
for Tennyson and the Idylls of the Kings when I read them to you, for you were
so beautifully responsive. My reward for telling you about Tennyson did
not have to wait until your belated note of thanks came to me in my old
age. I received my best reward in your eager response to the lyrical
beauty and the idealism of Tennyson.
But, in spite of the fact that I got
much of my reward at that time, I want you to know what your note meant to
me. I am now an old lady in my 80's, living alone in a small room, cooking
my own meals, lonely and seemingly like the last leaf of fall left behind.
You will be interested to know, Willie
that I taught school for 50 years and, in all that time, yours is the first
note of appreciation I ever received. It came on a blue, cold morning, and
it cheered my lonely old heart as nothing has cheered me in many years."
I wept over that simple, sincere note
from my teacher of long ago. I read it to a dozen friends. One of
them said, "I believe I'm going to write Miss Mary Scott a
letter. She did something similar to that for my boyhood."
That first Thanksgiving letter was so
successful and satisfying that I made a list of people who had contributed
something definite and lasting to my life and planned to write at least one
Thanksgiving letter every day in November.
For 10 years, I have
kept up this exciting game of writing Thanksgiving month letters. I have a
special file for answers, and now I have more than 500 of the most beautiful
letters anyone has ever received. A Thanksgiving letter isn't much. Only a
few lines are necessary, and a stamp to mail it. But the rewards are so
great that eternity alone can estimate them. Thanks to the rebuke of a
friend, I have learned a little, at least, about gratitude.
~ William L. Stidger
To you, O God of my
fathers,
I give thanks and praise,
for You have given me
wisdom and power.
~
Daniel 2:23
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