Letters of Intent - 05/28/10

In addition to Letters of Intent hosted by the lovely Julie, I'm also participating in the return of Follow Friday. I figured if there was any day that I had a lot of traffic on my blog, this was the day. Now before I get into my letter, allow me to get on my soap box and do a little preaching. IF you are participating in the Follow Friday bloghop, please for the love of all that is good and holy here in blogdom, if you take the time to visit someone's blog, read the post! I can't tell you how irritating it is to get comment after comment that says "Dropping by from {insert blog hophere}. Follow me back at {insert blog title/address here}. " Look, if you're only in it to increase your reader numbers and don't take the time to read what I've just written you can rest assured I won't be following you. I realize that's a pretty harsh statement but following just for the sake of numbers is rude in my book. This hop is going to work a little differently and I for one am T.H.R.I.L.L.E.D.

Now, for my letter. I can't promise you won't cry, nor will I admit to not crying while I wrote it. Just read it and I think you'll understand. Then swing back by Julie's and see what everyone else linked up with. I know I say this a lot, but I promise you won't be disappointed.

Dear Sir,

I hope my letter conveys my true feelings to you but know that nothing I can write or say would ever be adequate enough to tell you just how amazing you are. With that said, I will still attempt to explain why you will always mean the world to me, and my family.

Because of your selfessness and that of your family, my family's life was forever changed. To be more precise it changed May 14, 2010 at 8:48 a.m. That is when the phone rang and my momma answered it and was told they needed to go to Houston to the hospital because there was a liver for Daddy. My daddy who had only been on the UNOS transplant list for exactly 42 days that day. My daddy who had found out in January that he had liver cancer and that the only 'cure' would be a transplant. My daddy who had come home only the day before from the same hospital in Houston after he had dental surgery that was required as a condition of his placement on the transplant list.

We know so few things about you - only the basic statistics. You were 62 years old, lived in Florida and had a non-malignant brain tumor. You developed an infection that antibiotics couldn't squelch and ultimately led to your death. Did you have children? Grandchildren? Were you married and if so, did you leave behind a wife of many years? These are questions I don't know if I'll ever have the answers to.

Words cannot express our gratitude, and I wonder if I'm not the only person thankful for your gift of generousity. Your choice to offer your organs potentially saved up to nine lives that day. I'm sure any other families you helped are just as thankful but today I can only speak for one family. A family that consists of a couple married for 46 years, with 6 children (2 four-legged ones that just might be his favorites), 7 grandchildren, 1 great-granddaughter and another great-grandchild on the way.

We are so thankful and humbled by your act of charity but in our celebrating there is hurt. Hurt for your family who is going through the loss of one of their own. Our daily prayer intentions have mentioned you and your family, with the wish that they have a sense of comfort knowning a wonderful thing came from their tragedy. It may not comfort them now but in time my prayer and wish is that they come to realize just what an amazing man they were fortunate to know.

So sir, on this Memorial Day weekend, I remember you and your act of service. You may or may not have been in the military but to me and my family you are a hero. One that deserves to be remembered with flags and parades and a national day of recognition. I can't do more right now than write these words but please know that one day we will meet and I will give you the biggest, longest hug you've ever in your life received. I think that would be the best thing I could give you since your gift allowed me to know that I'll still be able to laugh with and hug my daddy for a long time.