Thanks from our family

I've been flying high since two Saturdays ago when we gathered together at the Vintage Theater to celbrate Seeds of Love for Errol. At first, I was too overwhelmed by the outpouring of love to put my feelings into words. Cary didn't share my problem and she put her thanks into these beautiful words.

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CARY WRITES...

Hi Everyone. The words flying around from all of you in the last
couple of days have captured the spirit of Seeds of Love more
eloquently than I can say. So let me just thank you all
electronically, until I get a chance to lay some real person-to-person
love on each of you, for some very particular gifts you have given my
small family during these months. (And yes, Patrick, I do most
certainly feel a part of a larger family.)

Thank you for teaching the neighborhood how to be with someone like
Errol. Maybe my favorite part of this whole process has been seeing
lots of neighbors, young and old, move past that natural awkwardness
into knowing how to talk to and kiss and high-five the Little Man.

Thank you for the new wheelchair which we are now working on choosing.
How would we have gotten a $5,000 wheelchair without you guys? I mean,
really. And now we can get the snazziest one on the market-- see photo
below.

Thank you for teaching me many organizational lessons: Eddie's overall
vision, calmness, good humour and perseverance; Katy's incredible
marketing skills; Clare's way of asking for favors so charmingly that
people end up feeling grateful to her for being asked; Bobbie Wrenn's
generosity with her fundraising methods; Suze and Patrick's use of
technology--and I'm leaving lots of you out, but these were some of my
fabulous tutorials in how to build an organization for the greater good.

Thank you for teaching the neighborhood children about where food
comes from and how much better it tastes when we eat it all together,
especially when the kids are running around like a pack of wild hyenas
while the adults are drinking too much wine.

Thank you for making me feel, the last couple of times that I read my
beloved food magazines, that those people have nothing on us. Sure,
they may be eating homemade pasta in a piazza in Tuscany, but there's
no way their neighbors are as fantastic as mine, there's no way
they're gathering berries to preserve from their local park or eating
goat cheese tamales while listening to a hot punk bluegrass band, and
it's not possible that there could be as much love in their hearts as
in mine right now. For the first time in my life, you couldn't pay me
a million bucks to move to the South of France.

Thank you for putting many of my very favorite people in one room.
What a pleasure, to see cousins from Georgia and Asheville next to old
friends from far away and work mates from long ago, all together, all
being served wine by the Chancellor himself!

Thank you for being the only reason I didn't cry all day when we were
finally denied disability for Errol last week.

Thank you for making this a political issue, because that is certainly
what it is, and many of you sent our story (which is unfortunately all
too common in the US) to our representatives. If we keep working
together, surely it will get better.

Thank you, finally, that many of you went out of your way to relieve
our guilt and awkwardness about receiving so much. I'll never forget
Bill Watkins reassuring me, "No, thank YOU!" and I could tell by the
radiant smile on his face (a smile we are all overjoyed to see on
Bill's face) that he really did feel that we gave him something. Well,
back at ya, Bill!

Cary