"Letters to Matt" - Part Three

The next day, I went to Paper Source to get a binder or scrapbook or some kind of book thing, and I completely changed my idea of how I was going to present this gift because I was finding nothing that was matching the nebulous picture I had in my head.

One of the happy workers suggested that I make the binder scrapbook book thing I had in mind. Yeah, I really had time and patience for that!

I decided to present the letters as letters. Loose. In a beautiful portfolio on beautiful paper.

I hurried home and printed out the letters before getting the kids at school.

Thirty-one letters.

9,700+ words.

After the kids were tucked in to bed, I sat Matt down and explained that I had a birthday gift for him and apologized for the tardiness.

I handed him the portfolio, he opened it up, and read the title page,

“Letters to Matt—a celebration of your 40th birthday”.

I said a few words, and then shut up.

He held the portfolio in his lap and didn't move. He was stunned. Speechless. Rather than look through the pages, he asked me who they were from. It was as if the pieces of paper were too precious to handle.

Letter writing...a quickly vanishing art form. Oh how precious is that ink on that paper.

He was experiencing that pull between wanting to devour the letters and wanting to savor each and every word.

As he sat mesmerized, I quietly got up from the couch and left him alone for the rest of the night.
Periodically, I’d glance over at him. Reading, taking it all in, stopping, walking away, coming back, resuming, reading, taking it all in, and repeating the process several times.

He sent me an email the next day, a simple “P.S. I’m still reeling from that wonderful gift.”

I am too.

Thank you everyone. Thank you.

"Letters to Matt" - Part Two

In the middle of the following day, I remembered about my little project and thought I’d see if anyone had responded. I was SO excited when two people had already emailed their letters. Hot diggity!

The next several weeks were hard because I normally share my enthusiasm for things with Matt. I’d find myself ready to blurt out, “Oh I got another letter today!”, and then realizing, “Oh yeah, that’s right, he doesn’t know about that.” When you have zero secrets with someone, even keeping a “good” secret is a bit unnerving.

The deadline came, and I had twenty-something letters sitting in my designated email inbox. Then a few days after the deadline, I had three people ask if it was too late. No! A few days after that, two more people sent theirs in.

So now I had all these letters, which I hadn’t looked at, done anything with in those six weeks. Just let them “pile up”.

Now I was like, “Okay, you’ve GOT to finish what you started.” The task seemed daunting.

Thankfully, I had my aunt to help me talk through how the final product should look.

Questions like:
Should every letter have its own page, even if it’s a short letter? (yes)
Should everything be in the same font? (no, font choices are like handwriting)
How should the letters be organized? (by categories—family, friends, colleagues)
Should there be anything that unifies the letters? (same margins and same paper)
Should I edit/correct anything? (spelling, but not syntax or grammatical stuff)

I waited for Matt to go to bed, and I got to work. This was the first time that I read any of the letters, and I had to keep stopping. They were so thoughtful, so wonderful, so rich, so overwhelming.

All the different voices, different perspectives. And yet common themes, similar observations of who Matt is, from his friend he’s had since they played in a sandbox together, to his newest colleague, and everyone in between.

I remember thinking, “Okay Bridgett, this is Matt’s gift. You cannot freak out and upstage his gift with your blubbering emotions. Remember to have restraint and leave him alone to experience all of this.”

To be continued in my next post

"Letters to Matt" - Part One

What do you get a guy for his 40th birthday who really isn’t a gift kind of guy?

How do I acknowledge a milestone birthday for my husband, when a lavish surprise birthday party isn’t in the cards since most of his friends and family live out of the state and even out of the country, leading filled-to-the-brim lives?

How do I pay tribute to my boyfriend of nineteen years? What would be meaningful to him?

The idea came to me about six months ago, kind of out of the blue, when I was doing dishes or something mundane. Since Matt is a writer and loves, loves, loves the written word, what if I had significant people in his life each write him a letter marking his 40th birthday?

For many years, Matt has paid tribute to his friends and family by writing true stories, in newspaper form, about them. He even started to offer his services to those he didn’t know, as an amazing keepsake with "Your Front Page".

Knowing that I would absolutely do a terrible job if I tried to imitate Matt’s brainchild, I decided to let everyone else do the writing!

Originally, the goal was to have the gift completed by Matt’s birthday, which was almost two months ago. But at about the time I was going to break in to his laptop for email addresses and send out the request for submissions, Matt’s dad fell ill and his health rapidly declined.

Matt flew down to Florida and spent the last few days with his dad before his dad left for heaven on May 29th. No one knew just how gravely ill his dad was, as evident by this Father’s Day tribute Matt had written three weeks earlier, which was published just two days before his dad moved on.

Life was immediately different in our home after that, and I thought about abandoning my gift idea. But rather than abandon it, I surrendered to the fact that it just wasn’t going to happen in the time frame I planned, but that it was still worth doing.

So I sneaked out of bed on the eve of his birthday, gathered email addresses from his laptop, set up a separate “LetterstoMatt@” email account for people to secretly send their submissions, and I sent out emails to about 65 friends, family, and colleagues explaining my vision for the gift and giving a five-week deadline (which was extended another week since we ended up being on vacation on the original date).

It was 2 am, there was no turning back, I had no idea what to expect, didn't know who'd respond, how they'd respond, and therefore hadn't really worked out all the details regarding the final product.

I crawled in to bed, hugged my slumbering husband, and prayed to God that people would be inspired and I left it all in His hands.

To be continued in my next post…

Happy Birthday Twinkies!

Our kids turned five years old a few days ago. It was wall-to-wall activity from the moment they woke up until the moment their little heads hit their pillows.

Here is the Itinerary for Twelve Hours of Birthday Fun


*The kids attended their last day of summer camp complete with frozen fruit bars and a rendtion of Happy Birthday to You for each of them


*The kids opened presents including Klutz Ribbon Collections from Grandma and Grandpa










*We all drove to downtown Chicago to Navy Pier

*We rode the ferris wheel a couple of times

*The kids rode the carousel

*We ate french fries and ketchup

*We had a very short-lived minature golf game before abandoning the idea because of the long wait between holes

*We drove to California Pizza Kitchen and enjoyed pasta

*The kids had HUGE sundaes complete with hot fudge and whipped cream, leaving very little for their mom and dad.

* The kids barely stayed awake for the short ride home.

* All four of us snuggled in to one bed together and fell asleep.

*Matt and I woke up with cricks in our necks, put everyone in their own beds, and promptly fell back to sleep until morning.

Having fun can be exhausting!

I Don't Wanna Bore You With It But...

Yesterday we celebrated my husband’s 40th birthday. After a morning meeting and a stop at a new specialty shop to pick up a birthday present for himself, Matt decided to scrap any more work for the day and spend the afternoon with our children and me. So he got to experience the more mundane things we and the kids do while he’s being Big Shot Media Relations Trainer Writer Guru Guy.

Like an eye doctor’s appointment for our daughter. For the record, on my 40th birthday, I’d rather spend those three hours getting a massage, manicure, and pedicure. I'm the self-centered selfish one of the duo. :)

Matt suggested we visit my recently widowed grandmother who turns 90 next month. We hadn't visited in several months due to my lack of effort. So we headed on over to her home and Matt loaded her up with his attention and love, as he facilitated the conversation between our little ones and their great-grandma.

Later, Matt, the kids, and I went out for dinner. We came home, and as I lay down recovering from a carb coma induced by my rigatoni with spinach, ricotta, and marinara sauce, and chocolate-covered gelato size-of-an-orange ball, Matt, unbeknownst to me, cleaned our kitchen and got the kids ready for bed.

There are days when I wonder if Matt’s paying attention to anything that’s going on around him.
I wonder how he doesn’t see the papers and books piling on top of his dresser—s o high that they start tumbling down on to the ground.

I wonder how, even with a checklist, he can forget to pack socks for a family trip and has to resort to wearing mine for those four days.

I wonder how he buys a different butter than the one I explain (specifically) to buy.

And then, like yesterday, I am reminded that Matt is paying attention. He’s paying attention to what matters—people.

Thank you for nineteen years of “going steady”, fourteen of those as husband and wife, and five of those as “mommy” and “daddy”.

You light up my life. You're my endless love. Your love knocks me off my feet.

And other sappy stuff that only a love song could express. And only people like Stevie Wonder can sing.

Happy Birthday My Love.