My Aunt Agnes was a knitting fiend! I was always getting something knitted from her when I was a kid. Usually something goofy or embarrassingly wearable, little dolls with knitted or crocheted dresses and often these weird socks or knitted booties.
Though I loved getting presents as a kid, I wasn't all that fond of Aunt Aggie's presents. I got one every birthday and at Christmas every year until she passed away. She was still sending me those dolls and socks when I was a teenager.
It's kind of sad when you get older and realize what a little snot you were when you were a kid. As I grew older I thought those presents were silly - for little kids - but my mom would force me to write thank you notes for them anyway. I really hated writing those letters thanking someone for something I didn't like.
I was too young to realize that it wasn't the present that mattered, it was the fact that I had an Aunt who loved me enough to send me something she had spent her time making. Unfortunately, my Aunt Aggie passed away when I was still too young and self-involved to make amends.
Recently, many, many decades later I was reminded of those dolls and those silly booties when a friend showed me a pair of knitted booties she had just gotten from a friend. It took me back in time to the days when I would open a package and find a similar knitting project in my gift box from an aunt who cared about me enough to send the gift.
So, in humility for my childishness and rudeness, and without further ado:
Dear Aunt Agnes,
Thank you so much for all the wonderful gifts that you knitted and sent me over the years. Now that I am older I know that they were created with love and sent to make me happy.
I just want you to know that the memory of all those gifts has brought me a very poignant moment of true happiness that you loved me enough to send something you had made personally. You never missed a birthday or a holiday, not once in all those years.
If that's not love, I don't know what is.
Your niece,
Little Terri
(my grown up name is now PopArtDiva - I'm sure you'd have a great laugh over that!)
XOXOXOXO
