Being "thankfulled" for pets

Though it might not readily appear to be the case when one first visits their homes, I can assure you that poor folks love their pets as much as anyone.

At first glance you may find yourself saying something like, “Good Lord! They don’t even care enough to get their pets spayed or neutered. And they barely even feed them!”

But the truth, my friends - as is so often the case in this life - runs much deeper than what we may be able to see at first glance.

When one seeks to “better understand” the cause behind something it virtually always leads to good things. (Yes, I include myself as being on this quest. Few times do I understand things more than when I write about them.)

And once we begin to understand, we begin to really care. And when we really care, we try to help.

Following are the words from an initial rough-draft letter I’ve kept, written once-upon-a-time by a student - when near one Thanksgiving I asked my class to write about things for which they were thankful. Here it is (completely unedited, which I found is often the finest version of any child’s writing):