I was delighted to get some feedback from the message I sent to Mrs. Read for her 80th birthday:

From her daughter, Sam, who is my age (almost literally - we were born 10 days apart) and we were very close friends forever:

June 13:

Ok....this is me bawling my eyes out! That is such a beautiful tribute to my mom and I know it will mean the world to her!  

You know that we feel the same for your parents and your family and the history we share! I LOVED when it was your birthday and there was that familiar fun banter among you and your siblings that felt like xmas to me. We love your family so dearly and there are so many times in a day that I think of you and your dad.

Thank you for taking the time to share these memories. Love you Deni Doll.......i want to call you that all of the time and well....i try to hold back cause it might not be your favourite but my mom often refers to you that way and she sings when she says it because she loves you and your family as though you are her own.  

There won't be a dry eye in the place!

Xoxo

A text from her youngest daughter who lives in Seattle - so close to me but sadly, we rarely see each other:

Hi Deni! I just read what you wrote for my mom on her birthday. So teary! It was very beautiful! Thank you so much. I know she was very moved as was my dad. Sam said there were few dry eyes. Such a beautiful tribute!!

From her eldest son:
Please send my note of love and thankfulness for the Fauberts to Mrs Faubs and "Dennie".
Denine or Dennie as I ever called you. Thank you for the wonderful and kind words sent on moms 80th. Loved the photo of you and your Mom.
I  know that all the sharing and caring we did as families were our earliest training grounds for all lifes lessons. Times spent together and together within the togetherness was incredible. Things Marc and I would do trips travelling the subway to every stop imaginable and down to the maple leaf gardens as kids for open practice; grass fires; tree carving; fort building; model building and destroying; army men playing and burning; sand pit playing; broken bubble gum machine free gum chewing and some less than flattering remarks for construction workers and parks staff were not our finest moments.
Trips to Ottawa were especially memorable for no other reason than we got together after a period apart.
Seeing you all as grown ups however infrequently at Christmas has also been a blast.
Thanks for the memories one and all.

And from Mrs. Read herself:

Dear Denine,thankyou so much for your wonderful email message, we had a wonderful family party at Sandra and John's for my birthday. Sandra read out your message until she could not see for tears, and had to pass it on to my nephew to finish, I was in tears so i could not have finished it, I think it was so kind of you, and i will treasure it always. The whole family appreciated your memories and thoughtfulness  Denine, love you dear. Sue and I went to see your mom today but just had a few minutes as EV had just come to picked her up to take her home , for Matts birthday party. happy summer holidays to the boys! love Fread

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We do not tell people enough how much they mean to us. I am going to make it my goal to tell people more often just how much they mean to me, what an influence they had on me and most of all, how much I love them.

Yesterday we went to a friend's house for the 4th of July (for the first time in about 10 year we did not have a party ourselves. I just did not have it in me to put one on for so many people). Anyway, my friend's MIL was there. I have met her several times over the past 15 years but it had been a few years since I had last seen her. She kept going on and on about how much weight I had lost. I really don't weight a lot less than I did the last time I saw her - maybe 5 pounds and only 10 pounds less than my heaviest since I met her. Makes me wonder just how fat she thought I was.