Blog 831 – 12.01.2017

My Sweet Tootie

I have loved a lot of people in my life and none more than my Sweet Tootie, Stacey Hall Hewitt. She is my cousin and my mother kept her during the day while her mother worked when she was little. I have always loved her like a little sister. Today as I write this little piece it is her birthday and I sent her a little email “Happy Birthday, Sweet Tootie” wish. She replied thank you and (hugs). I just thanked her for the hugs and especially the ones she gave me in 1968 when she was three. Those hugs I so enjoyed and will remember them always and her.

One of my favorite movies, A Winter’s Tale, with Colin Farrell and Jennifer Connelly tells of a little girl named Willow and how a young man at the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth fell in love with her older sister dying of tuberculosis and how Willow and he planned to save her with “true love’s kiss” like in the story of Snow White. Alas, that miracle was not meant for Willow’s sister but another red haired girl in the future whose mother would work for a much older Willow. It is a marvelous and magical story. I have read the book and seen the movie several times and encourage anyone who loves a great love story to read or see it as well.

My Sweet Tootie taught me a lot about love. Just before her fourth birthday in 1968 and just after my eighteenth I left home for the Army and barely a year later I was on my way to South Vietnam. I used to write notes to her that were mostly little drawings of eyes, hearts, and big U’s to remind her that David’s Sweet Tootie was and would always be loved. It is still true today though I no longer have to draw little pictures.

I hope you will take a moment and often to remind all your Sweet Tooties how much they are loved.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gd6gmRXzwx1cfQexQEqHuUF2cr-oNJod

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White