Thank You Card Love

The sun is now out. I start this day rested and ready-to-go!! I've been up contemplating and considering. Many of you know my mentor, Mimi. I had announced here weeks? months? ago how excited I was to be able to co-present with her & Enrique in Washington DC for our sixth annual NAEYC presentation. That is not to be...... not this year.

A week ago Mimi was in a dramatic car accident. She is still in the hospital in the trauma unit and has yet to be able to get out of bed. She has multiple broken bones & other injuries. We will dedicate our workshop on "Movement" to Mimi's return to moving and ultimately to her walking..... and in the meantime she will continue dancing in our hearts.

Yesterday I was all set to go visit her in the hospital when our dear mutual friend Candace called to say that she'd been put on a 'no-visitor status.' The outpouring of love & affection was more than her recovery could withstand. We nearly swamped her with our concern. What a feeling of helplessness ensued.

So I awoke today thinking what a debt of gratitude I have for her. For our Mim: For her chutzpah. For her insight. For her heart-of-gold. For her energy. For her example. For her love. I have notes she's written to me tucked in my guitar case, scrunched in my blue box of surprises, folded in the cubbies of my desk drawers, crumpled into coat pockes, curled next to my toothbrush. Mim love. She's sprinkled it over our heads for decades and we've grown. Her scrawled peace signs and Mimila-joy offering encouragement for the journey, our journey together. She's always called me her rainbow child. She's stood in the back of many of my workshops, giving a silent 'whoop-whoop' of arm waving frenzy. She's stood back there giving me the thumb's up. She's been in the shadows continually taking her hat off to me, blowing kisses & sending me her strength. She's allowed me to ride on her coat tails. She's given my name to others. She is a blessing to us all, without a doubt. In that process she has been a blessing to me professionally and thereby to me personally..... or is it that she's been a blessing to me personally and thereby professionally? Thank all that is good in this world that we have a chance to tell her what she means to us after the collision.

Last night I was playing babysitter so that Sarah & Scott could go out to dinner to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. Sarah had a card that had been forwarded to me at their address:

Debbie --

I am so pleased & honored to have finally met you! I thank you for such an amazing gift of your music and special book! Every play group, I read the book & play the song for our families to start us out! I am so grateful for such a colorful, delightful way to share such an important & positive message! I thank you for the inspirational way you have used your gifts to touch my life, my daughters' lives and so many others!

Love & Respect,

Ronni

I am able to receive cards like this one due to all of the Mimi-time & attention that has been showered upon me thru the years. Thank you Mim. Thank you Ronni. (Ronni is a pretty exclamation-mark person herself, as perhaps you gather from her note to me(!).... and she looks great in pink. I think it's safe to say she was a bit excited to have me materialize at the twins-club purse-party earlier this fall. Giggle-giggle! Hugs!)