Dear Sammy,
It's September 15th, a family holiday of sorts as it's the day your Great-Uncle Kevin became an angel, your cousins Zak and Scarlet were born and the day after Aunt Jen and Uncle Chad got married (on a boat, on the ocean, at sunset.) Mommy told me you made the day your own by rolling over for the first time at 2:30 AM.
A lot has happen in the month since Pops and I visited you and your cousins and all the other people who love you. After we played with Zak and Scarlet we drove to a campground near the Delaware Water Gap in New York. Because we love history, and we were so close to the Delaware River that George Washington crossed in 1776, we went to Valley Forge National Park. In a few years Uncle Aaron and Aunt Fran will bring you and Auggie to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where you will see a picture of George Washington Crossing the Delaware from Valley Forge, Christmas night 1776, but, this park is not about that day. It is about the cold, long winter the following year, when a group of mostly poor immigrant men and their families became the army that won the Revolutionary War. (I sent you a board book about Benjamin Franklin from the bookstore. Have you gotten it yet?)
We were having fun, Pops and I, walking Zak around the park, imagining ourselves camped there, when we came to the Memorial to the Soldiers of the Revolution. Through its arch we saw a flag at half mast and I said "I bet Senator Kennedy has died." And then I began to cry because I remembered a kindness he did for Great- Grampy Earls. It was the year I was 16 and we were on our first vacation to Cape Cod ever. Grampy wrote to the Senator and asked if we could have a tour of the Kennedy Family Compound in Hyannis to "instill a sense of history and purpose into his six youngest children". Believe it or not, the Senator answered "Yes" and would have given us the tour himself except he was in the hospital after a plane crash. The senator's brother was President Kennedy who told people to "Ask not what the country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." I bought a charm for my bracelet that day to remind myself that there are little things every one can do to make their country a better place.
Your mom and dad will teach you all they know about being good people and good citizens, and you will discover things to teach them as you get older. In the meantime, congratulations on taking your first move toward independence.
Love,
Marmee
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