Heart-Warming Surprises
I continue to be enlightened by small surprises.
Just now, as I was looking through an old box I had retrieved from my mother’s basement, I found a letter to me, as a teenage girl. It was from a woman who I hold dear to my heart. She was a neighbour of my maternal grandparents when they still had their farm. I’d like to share her words with you now:
“August 21/93 (this day just happened to be my late maternal grandfather’s birthday!)
Leanne,
This is a little something I’ve given to a few teen friends. Keep it some place special and when you feel the pressures of adolescence, take it out and read it.”
The next page reads:
“I’m Special
I’m Special. In all the world there’s nobody like me. Since the beginning of time, there has never been another person like me.
Nobody has my smile. Nobody has my eyes, my nose, my hair, my voice. I’m Special.
No one can be found who has my handwriting.
Nobody anywhere has my tastes for food or music or art. No one sees things just as I do. In all of time, there’s been no one who laughs like me, no one who cries like me. And what makes me laugh or cry will never provoke identical laughter and tears from anybody else, ever.
No one reacts to any situation just as I would react. I’m Special.
I’m the only one in all of creation who has my set of abilities. Oh, there will always be somebody who is better at one of the things I’m good at, but no one in the universe can reach the quality of my combination of talents, ideas, abilities and feelings. Like a room full of musical instruments some may excel alone, but none can match the symphony sound when all are played together.
I’m a symphony.
Through all of eternity no one will every look, talk, walk, think, or do like me. I’m Special. I’m rare.
And in rarity there is great value. Because of my great rare value, I need not attempt to imitate others. I will accept – yes, celebrate my differences. I’m Special. And I’m beginning to realize it’s no accident that I’m Special. I’m beginning to see that God made me Special for a very Special purpose.
He must have a job for me that no one else can do as well as I. Out of all the billions of applicants only one is qualified, only one has the combination of what it takes.
That one is me. Because… I’m Special.”
I feel as if these words apply to me now, and not just as a teenager. Each transition in life that we take, I feel we need this kind of pep-talk, this kind of motivation to remind us that we’re on the right path. Because that path is our very own.
Joyce has passed on now, but she has a Special place in my heart. It’s not only for how she cared for me and loved me, it’s also how she never lost motivation. I’m told that close to her curtain closing on her life here with us, she was still finding motivation to fight for sacred Special trees, what she believed in and the people around her. I can only hope that her passion for life lives on within me and each of us she touched. And now I share some of her love with you.
