Yes Virginia

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!” ― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

I have always enjoyed the message in this story from New York's THE SUN newspaper and as such I share it with you.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus.

Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

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DEAR EDITOR:
I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

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VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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Have a joyous Christmas and Holiday season full of life, love, generosity and devotion. Stay inspired my friends.

Devoted Lives

Since the passing of my mother in October of 2008, I have been searching for something. A piece of understanding about the relationship of two people being married for nearly 60 years. It is not a burden upon my spirit but a yearning to know what it means.

In the search for that meaning of their life together, it occurs to me that it can serve as a lesson. A lesson of devotion, commitment and love that two people can achieve. I would read poems and inspirational words from many different sources. Words of Austen and Dickinson to Shakespeare and Whitman, with many different verse in between.

To my surprise I found the words in the notes of Thomas Jefferson. He and his wife Martha were married for a mere 10 years, but their bond was one that only two people can understand fully. As Martha Jefferson lay dying in September 1782, she began to write out sentimental words to express a sense of the situation. She wrote, copying from her husband's own literary book, lines originally adapted from Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy.

It is these words that complete my own parent's relationship of 59 years. One that I choose to remember and move on from. It will guide me in my father's remaining days and my own.

"Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen, the days and hours of it are flying over heads like clouds of (a) windy day never to return -- more every thing presses on --"

At this point she could write no more, but the words continue in Thomas' own handwriting.

"and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make!"
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