Dear Mom and Dad,

There really isn’t any way that I can express to you how grateful I am to have been raised by you two. Words are not enough to explain how much I appreciate the amounts of hard work and love you have put in these past 23 almost 24 years of my existence. (Add on about 2 and a half years for the parenting you had to do when tragically raising Joey without the presence of me, your favorite child ;) ). There has never been a moment of my life when I have not felt your love and support guiding me in everything that I have done. (Even when you spent 1200$ on a trumpet that I played for two years in 4th and 5th grade).

Thank you for allowing me to play sports, but never forcing them on me. Growing up I always looked up to Joey and wanted to do everything that he did. You let me sign up and play on whatever team I wanted to, but never once did I feel pressured to. Playing sports taught me things that have carried into my adult life. Having you guys there to support me through every win, loss, injury, and frustration allowed me to build myself into a self confident woman who can be a leader, handle adversity, deal with stupid people, and so much more. I am forever thankful for the countless nights and weekends you spent driving all around the state of Maine for basketball and softball practices, games, and tournaments. Sports played such an important role in my life and without you committing yourselves the way you did I would have never been successful.

Thank you for teaching me the importance of school. There is a reason “student” comes first in the term “student-athlete” and thank you for stressing that to me. Throughout the years you made sure that my school work came first and that homework was done before anything else was. As a teacher now, I know how often the excuse of playing sports is used for school work not being completed, and I don’t think I can think of a single time that you allowed me to use that as an excuse when I was in school. Thank you for helping me with projects, and spending hours at night studying flashcards. Thank you for holding me to such high expectations and never letting me accept anything less than my best. (Even though in the scheme of things the heart attack I had over the B I got in Precalc in high school serves no significance to my life now).

Thank you for being the “mean” parents. At the time when we were butting heads I couldn’t see things from your perspective, and I really still fully can’t now because I’m not a parent yet. I do, however, work with kids everyday and see how different parenting styles affects children. Thank you for not letting me have sleepovers on school nights. Thank you for not letting me ram the roads at all hours of the night in high school. Thank you for enforcing rules and following up with your consequences. I might have disliked you in the moment, but now I am forever thankful.

Thank you for teaching me manners and respect. Having spent years working with the public and now working with middle schoolers, I have had much experience with both adults and children who lack these things. They are not fun to be around. You raised me to the kid everyone wanted to play with on the playground, not the brat who always got their way. I learned to treat people with kindness because of the way I watched you two interact with each other and any other person that you have come across in life. You both are so polite you could probably tell someone to go to hell and they would gladly go.

There’s honestly so much more that I could say, but it would take me a lifetime to write everything down. So thank you. Thank you for being weird, thank you for loving me endlessly, thank you for being kind and caring, thank you for being my best friends, and thank you for showing me what a relationship is supposed to look like. You two mean more to me than you could ever know, and I hope that you guys know that. I love you both to the moon and back!!

Love,

Emily