On Working and Faith

Dearest Daughters,

I love you three with the most unexplained love. I cannot describe it to you, but just as Mammie and Pop-pop told me when I was younger "you will understand one day when you have kids of your own." I'm writing this to you all tonight with a heavy heart. Soon I will be leaving for another town to start a new job. Daddy didn't get fired from his work - he was let go because someone at the place he loved to work at every day didn't do their own job with all of his heart and there wasn't enough money to pay daddy to do his job.

I hope that you all learn a lot from me. I hope that I can live as an example for you, just as Pop-pop has lived as an example for me. I hope that you learn love, kindness, patience, happiness, trust, independence, and that your tender hearts never harden in this old world in which we live. I also want you to learn that no matter what you do in life, do it the best you can.

If you do something in life and don't try hard, someone else will have to pay the consequences. It is not my choice that we are going to go through some tough times in the coming days. Please know that although I may not be there at night to tuck you in, I will be looking at your smiling faces in the pictures which I will have with me and I will still whisper "Good Night Sweet Princesses" as I kiss each of you before going to bed each night. I hope as you sleep, you can still feel daddy giving you a big hug.

I also want you to learn about Faith. Daddy has it. I have unshakable faith in God. Faith is something that you can't see, but you believe in it. For example, when you walk over the bridge at the park, you don't know that the bridge will hold you up. However, you walk over it anyway, believing that it is safe and will protect you from the water below. That, in a nutshell, is faith. Daddy had faith that God would provide a new job so that we can have clothes, food, and shelter. He provided two offers for me to choose from and in this tough tough economic time, it has been a true blessing. We are very very fortunate.

I just wanted you to know these things, my beautiful daughters. Whatever you do in life, do so with a happy heart to the best of your abilities, and have faith in God and yourself. The rest of life's problems just seem to work themselves out over the long run.

Daddy loves you babies. May you have the sweetest of dreams as you sleep.