It shouldn’t have taken a global pandemic to summon our better angels, but Covid-19 has brought out the best in many of us, proving again what Abraham Lincoln asserted in his inaugural address in 1861: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.
Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
While it remains to be seen what the rest of 2020 will bring, still in the grip of a global pandemic and the United States still bitterly divided following a momentous general election that has reverberated all across the world, November brings an opportunity to express our gratitude to those who help make the darkest days of the pandemic just a little brighter.
There are plenty of people to thank in 2020 says “Cowboy Philosopher,” literacy advocate and award-winning author of “The Legacy Letters,” Carew Papritz, who founded National Thank You Letter Day in the United States three years ago, in part “to introduce to children the forgotten art, and importance, of writing a thank you letter.” From his home in Green Valley, Arizona, just 40 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, Papritz believes that during this pandemic when “we are all somehow separated from those we love by the dictates of the virus, we can still carve out a moment to thank those who have helped us through this trying time. Wherever you are in this world, the timeless values embodied in a thank you letter – civility and manners, gratitude and kindness – are universal.”
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