LETTER

Dear Editor:

This!

Like many, all through our lives we have thanked others for simple things. It is a warm and friendly thing to do and costs nothing. Some­times there are thanks due and gladly given for greater things; when someone grabs you before you step off a curb into the path of a bus, or stops to help you on a rainy night when you have engine failure, or when a stranger re­turns your lost wallet. These are heart-felt expressions of real gratitude.

Now we find there is a kind of thanks that even the strongest words of relief and gratitude cannot properly express. Thanks that are due for something larger than even the givers can know. When this kind of expression is due, words fail.

This is the kind of thanks the Hofer family and those close to us must try some­how to express to you.

Even in the unspeakable pain of our loss of Mari­ah, our beautiful and sweet daughter, grand-daughter, sister, niece, cousin and friend, we have been and continue to be lifted up by you, our friends and commu­nity. The blessings to us of your expressions of love and sympathy have been over­whelming and beautiful. Our hearts, wounded and broken, you have soothed and care­fully bound. Our bodies have been fed, blanketed and pro­tected in the storm. Our very souls, bewildered and reel­ing, you have gathered in and cherished toward healing.

How can it be that such pain and loss seem to open the pathway into greater awareness of beauty and love? Without the warm embrace of your support we might never have had the peace to perceive this part of Mariah's legacy.

Naming everyone who deserves our gratitude is impossible. The hundreds or even thousands of prayers, the food and firewood, the hugs and tears of sympathy, the bills paid, the support expressedhellip;these cannot be measured.

Our hope in making a small beginning toward what we owe in thanks is that we will find ways to "pay it forward". Our prayers henceforth will be stronger, our actions more direct, our willingness and openness to help others increased, our faith renewed and grown.

Thanks to everyone for your support and love in our tragedy. We love you.

The Hofer family,

Waitsburg