When Massive Follows Tiny

Dear Jessica Brennan,

Sometime around 1997, I got an idea to send a letter to Dad’s cousins in England and ask them if they had a family photo of him with his mum and dad, because all of the photos Dad’s family had brought from the UK to Canada, had been lost in a fire. Specifically, I had asked for a picture of Dad’s mum Elsie, who had died suddenly when Dad was about 11.

I had never met Dad’s parents, or these cousins, or even spoken to them. I had never been to England, and as Dad’s third wife, I imagined that there might be some eye-rolling going on across the pond.

Occasionally at Christmas a card would come, or on Dad’s birthday a small note might appear, but he never reciprocated; he always meant to.

I wrote the letter in question one day and told them who I was, and I gave them a friend’s address because I wanted to put together a memory box for Dad for Christmas. All was to be a surprise. During the summer and fall of 1997, I started writing a story about Elsie and her husband George, secretly piecing together things that Dad had told me and historical events that occurred over their lifetimes. All the while, I was hoping for an envelope to come from England with a picture of the family or at least one of Elsie.

One day my friend called to say that an envelope had indeed arrived from the land of hope and glory, and I was so happy. I went to pick it up, and the envelope was one of those massive padded envelopes and it was absolutely heaving with letters and pictures and postcards. There were notes that Elsie had written to England when the family moved to Canada, picture after picture of Dad as a baby and child, and even the letter that George had written to tell the cousins that Elsie had died.

Dad was suitably moved by the gift, and that Christmas Day we called and spoke to his cousins, and this resulted now in an almost 25-year friendship with them and their children, and their grandchildren. We spent the millennium with the Brennan clan. A few years later we all met in England once again when Dad performed at Royal Albert Hall and many of them have visited us in Canada since. We have very fond memories of our time with them all and look forward to making more.

It took me about ten minutes to write the letter I sent to England that day in 1997. It took a little courage, but only a little, and what followed was absolutely massive. Without one tiny gesture though, the massive would never have been ignited.

So my advice today is when you think of doing the little things, do them. They are little, and often don’t take much time, money or energy, but they are like seeds that can grow into amazingly gorgeous things.

If I hadn’t written a letter, which now I consider a love-letter, to these cousins, the correspondence might still be coming at Christmas from England; maybe. Maybe not. Life has a way of taking over if you let it. They may have given up hope and moved on.

What a shame it would have been to miss out on this amount of love and friendship over the years. I can’t imagine my life without them now. One tiny act. One massive love.

Love,

Mum xo

Please consider liking us on Facebook and following us on Instagram.