Goodbye Mom

As many of you know, my mother recently passed away. It's been a very busy and sad time for all of us. I thought today would be especially difficult. We were emptying out her apartment. It wasn't as stressful as we thought it would be.

Among Mom's things we found a letter lovingly written to Dad. I thought I would pass along her gift to my father. Some things never change:

January 1, 1976

Dear Andy,

This is a New Years gift for you. You will notice it is a tuit. I wanted to give you one for your Birthday but it didn't seem a nice enough present for that, and Christmas I wanted to get you something nice, and for our anniversary I forgot about it. you will notice it is not square, but round. The reason is that I have never heard you say "when I get a square tuit" but hundreds of time you have said "when I get a round tuit" so I figured this must be something you have needed for about 28 years and certainly should have after waiting so long for one.
Remember the new kitchen linoleum we bought in November of 1974 - you couldn't put it in the kitchen because you never got a round tuit - so in November of 1975 we got indoor-outdoor carpeting for the kitchen floor and you never got a round tuit. I figured if you didn't get a round pretty soon in a few years all your tools will be out of the garage and sitting in the yard because of all the kitchen flooring that we keep buying and putting in the garage because you never got a round tuit.

I trust that now you have a round tuit that in 1976 you will be able to correct the kitchen flooring problem, and maybe even install the paneling in the front room that you haven't been able to do for 8 years because you didn't get a round tuit and if a round tuit really works as well as you say it does I might even get the book shelves made for the front room.

Incidentally, round tuits are relatively inexpensive to make and if you should need one for the garage, bedroom, motor home, please let me know as I wouldn't want to be the cause of your not getting to do the things you want do because you don't have a round tuit. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

All my love,
Ellen

And this was with the letter.