I would like to believe that the Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project is making a real difference in the lives of those who participate and the people they love. Sometimes stories come in that I feel I just have to share with all of you. This is one such story...

With Mother's Day coming soon, this is a story about the love between a mother and her daughter. It is also about a father's legacy of love. It begins as a mother, Sherron Haley of North Richland Hills, Texas, finds out about our recent contest with its theme "A Gift From the Heart." She submits this entry...

One anniversary, my husband presented me with a green glass medicine bottle. A handwritten label bore this message:

Dr. Haley's
World Famous
Love Knots

Taken as directed, Dr. Haley's
love knots relieve depression,
foster well-being, cause good
humors to flow, and love to grow.

Dosage: Adults only, 1 daily as needed.
Double your love back if satisfied.

Although not selected as one of the final winning entries, I remember reading Sherron's entry and being very touched by it.

When Sherron found out that she had not won the contest, she wrote this
e-mail to her daughter Michelle Haley:

Dearest Michelle,

I found out on the thirty-first that I had not been successful in my birthday plan. Here's the story.

In February, I had responded to a writing contest. The prize was something that I had already been praying about getting you (I am still working on this.) You had to write about a gift you had received. I decided to write about the jar your father had given to me with the "love knots." I thought that, had I won, it would have been a gift from your father as well. I know how you struggled with finding a message from him. He had just been so ill for so long that some things didn't get done.

I have never started so early on a present only to get so little results. The winner of the contest wrote of a gift she received while overseas in the Middle East. It was a precious note and quite relevant.

Please know that I love you. I wanted this to be a special birthday. I am so sorry that I am unable to share your special moment!

Love,
Mother

When daughter Michelle received the e-mail above from her mother, she forward it to us here at the Legacy Project with her own story about what had happened:

I am writing this e-mail in reference to a recent contest you did called "A Gift From the Heart." I know this contest has ended but I wanted to share my story.

I recently had a birthday -- on March 29th I turned 23 years old. Around my birthday, my mother kept saying how excited she was about my birthday present, but informed me that she couldn't tell me quite yet. She told me she had started working on it quite a while ago, but wouldn't be able to tell me until March 31. Yesterday, I received the e-mail above from her.

Here is the reason that this e-mail was so touching to me...

Three years ago I lost my father to cancer. My younger brother had passed away two years prior, also from cancer, my family was just starting to recover their strength when we found out about my father. My father had seen how badly it hurt me to watch my brother die and asked me to go away on a mission trip while he was dying. I fought with him about it. I told him I needed to be there. But, in the end, he won. How could I deny the wishes of a dying man? My father was right. The mission trip was just what I needed.

When I returned home from my mission trip, my father was in his last days. I stayed by his side for those last weeks. He was on very strong medication, but every once in awhile he would emerge from his medicated state and be able to talk with me. During one of these times he told me that he has something very important to tell me. He told me it was something that he had waited my whole life to tell me, but that he knew I was now ready to hear. The medication took effect then and I figured I would hear it from him when he came back around. That never happened. My father died on September 11, 1998.

I was heartbroken that I never got to hear what he had to tell me. I searched the entire house for some kind of note, a letter... but I found none. I have often wondered what he would have said, if he'd only had the chance.

When my mother wrote that story about my father to you, she was trying to give me a far greater gift than a cedar chest. She wanted to give me something that she could say came from my father, because he had written those notes. I am not sure why I am writing you except that I was so moved that my mother would try to do something so precious for me. She does not know I am writing you. After I received her e-mail, I simply looked for the contest online. My mother's story talked about receiving "love knots" from my father in a small jar. It would mean so much to me if you could put my mother's story online because it was something so beautiful and precious to her. I know you received many touching entries, but perhaps you could consider it a birthday present for me.

And so the love has come full circle. Sherron, although you didn't "win" the contest and weren't able to give your daughter Michelle the birthday gift you had initially planned, you did give your daughter a far greater present. If I were your daughter, I know it would mean the world to me. And Michelle -- Happy Birthday!

Thank you both so very much for sharing your story with us. I will be sending you each a specially autographed copy of Something to Remember Me By as my small way of honoring the obvious legacy of love you are both creating.


Warmly,

Susan V. Bosak
Chair, Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project