May all your knobs sparkle

When we combed through papers collected by my mother-in-law we found a cache of greeting cards.

We excavated cards written by her husband of 72 years, and cards she drew and wrote for him.

The cache revealed a sweeter side of my mother-in-law’s temperament that was—at times—prickly.

Her hand-written greetings remind me that a gift from the heart packs more meaning than stale chocolates from the grocery store.

I found similar gems that folks wrote in a 13-word exercise for The New York Times.

Readers embroidered a Westernized Haiku in 13 words to express gratitude and despair.

Here’s one salty entry:

My dog would hide his clothes. Should’ve been my first clue. Dogs know

And a passionate ploy:

Boy meets boy. Sparks fly. Boy kisses boy. Boy, oh boy, oh boy

I tried my hand at 13 words for my Valentine:

As we craft our own language our relatives race for the door knob

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Pictured: my father and mother-in-law, Walter and Violet Emery

16 February 2018

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