Why Don't They Make Bigger Thank You Cards?

I apologize for not posting over the last few days. I’ve been working my way through a very fat folder related to the stack of thank-you cards I want to write. So many people have sent me gifts and helped me out lately that I feel like a new bride returning from her honeymoon. I've had an excuse for putting it off, but now I've got some serious work to do. When you've received such bounty, writing thank you notes becomes more than just a little nicety that can be dashed off after supper. It’s a full time job!

For most of these generous individuals, I know what to say.

“The flowers were beautiful, they really cheered me up!”
“This book kept me feeling hopeful through those long nights when I was too worried to sleep.”
"I couldn't have navigated the State Disability Insurance website without your guidance."
“This is the biggest koosh ball I’ve ever seen!”

But there is one thank you note that troubles me. I don’t know what to say to these people. Maybe the problem is just that I can't find a card big enough.



Over two years ago I drove my little white Honda civic from Denver to the West Coast for what might have been the 12th time in 6 months. After a year and a half of creative and exhausting effort, I’d landed a pharmaceutical sales job in California! My new employer thought I already lived there, so I had to scramble. In a forty-eight hour whirlwind, I searched the newspaper, found a house, signed a lease, left my car in the driveway of our new home, and flew back to Colorado to fetch my sweetheart and a U-haul truck full of our stuff.

I hardly needed that plane to fly, I was soaring with joy. Sea air rushed in to fill the space under the plane's shining belly while the hilly landscape rolled out below us. The whole central coast was being offered to me as a gift-wrapped prize I had earned the right to unwrap every day. Through my plastic window, I could see world I that would be mine when I came back here; when I came back home.

There were the waves that I would surf! There were the trails that I would run! There was the bay that I would sail! There were the vineyards that I would drink! There were the orchards that I would eat!

The best part about this memorable take off was that I was not alone. I’d made friends in the tiny two-room airport! This nice couple and their beautiful, bright daughter lived here in San Luis Obispo. They loved it and agreed that I would love it too. I pointed at features in the landscape and they answered my questions as best they could. In San Francisco, we said a sweet goodbye. They wished me the best in everything and I wondered if I would ever see them again. It seemed possible. Everything wonderful seemed possible.

That was June of 2006. By March of the following year I had been laid off from the new job I’d worked so hard to get and my fiance was suddenly spending more time with the trainer from the gym than with me. (If you read “Cancer Is My Piano” you will probably recognize, as I am while writing this, that this was my boulder and tree stump.)

Even though my plans had crumbled, I didn’t regret the move. I was in love with the Central Coast. I ate fresh organic food from the dozen local farmer’s markets. I made new friends who loved art, the outdoors, and Scrabble. I spotted dolphins, whales, seals and otters without even trying. Best of all, after 3 years of binge and sloth in Denver, I was fit and trail-running again.

To celebrate my 34th birthday, I entered a steep and thrilling 8k race held in the breathtaking wonderland of our local state park, The Montana De Oro. (I don’t know how to put the little wiggly thing over the second “n” to make it into “montanya.”). Actually, the Pacific Coast Trail Run organizers don’t call these events races. They call them “Runs that aren’t races in beautiful places.” But, it’s like a race. There are courses mapped out, finish and start lines, and fellow runners to pass or be passed by depending on how hard you’d trained. I’d trained hard! When I crossed that finish line I felt like a champion. I felt like a super-hero. I felt like everything was going to be okay even though I’d been sobbing my way through every bedtime since St. Valentine's.

I was right to be so optimistic. That turned out to be one of the luckiest days of my life. That was the day I got two new families.

Right there at the finish line were my friends from the airplane! We talked for a while and they introduced me to another woman, J., who had also run the race that day. She was with her niece, C., who is now one of my closest and dearest friends. She’s the one who just spent a week at my house taking care of me post-surgery. To my inexpressible delight, I’ve been sort of adopted by her generous family. Not a week has gone by since my diagnosis that I haven’t gotten at least one fabulous blues-battling package from some corner of the West where her mom or aunt or cousin or mom’s-best-friend lives.

Meeting J. and C. would have been good fortune enough to earn that day a place among my lifetime list of “very bests.” But, that was only half the blessing. Maybe my personal angels work harder during my birthday?

Sometimes I imagine the life I’d be living if I hadn’t reconnected with S., L., and SL., (my friends from that first flight out of San Luis.) It is just, ugh, not worth thinking about. This was true before my double whammy hit and I moved into their home. They are just fabulous people. Maybe I’ve never known what I wanted to do for a living, but I’ve always known I wanted to grow up and be the kind of person who gets to have friends like this.

I am tempted to write a long string of paragraphs outlining their assets. I could easily spend the rest of the day describing how sweet, kind, caring, fun, creative, inspiring, honest, thoughtful, generous, supportive, interesting, intelligent and beautiful they are. I could then spend tomorrow listing all the ways my life is better because they are in it. But, what I REALLY need to focus on is writing them a big fat thank you note!