<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Helvetica; ">A Thank You Message Written for her Family at Thanksgiving</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Helvetica; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Helvetica; "><font>Happy Thanksgiving, my beloved family. <br><br>As this time of year rolls around and we look at what we're thankful for, <br>I'd have to say that what I'm most grateful for is my family. <br>We are all here because we are the descendants of something greater than our own lives,<br>and that is our family's lineage.<br>We hold our place in a sequence of lives, <br>a lineage of people who knew pain and joy, hope and despair, <br>who were capable of greatness and generosity, as well as pettiness and spite.<br>You are the next generations. <br>You hold the key to the future and the link to memory. <br>You are the living legacy of all the ancestors who have gone before you.<br>Although much of our history and its players remain unknown to us,<br>never forget that there is an invisible line of men and women who<br>stand behind each of you and stretches back through time, farther than we can see.<br>This moment is the culmination of every thought, action, feeling and <br>circumstance of all of their lives added to all of your grandparents' lives,<br>your parents' lives and now your lives.<br>In this season of gratitude and remembering, I ask you to take a moment<br>to consider your place in this lineage, to imagine what the faces must look like<br>that stand silently behind you, to consider what their dreams may have been and<br>how you are the answer to their prayers.<br>Then look forward, to the children who come after you, to their children and beyond.<br>What would you like to leave as a legacy for them? <br>What prayers beat in your heart for them?<br>For my part, I know that you are the living answers to my prayers. <br>On behalf of all of your ancestors may I say, Thank you for choosing us.<br><br><br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>- Diana Del Drago<br></font></div></body></html>