Fifty Thank-You Notes for My Mom

For my mother's fiftieth birthday, I secretly asked fifty people who know her to write her a thank-you note: family, old friends, her coworkers, her hairdresser, the neighbor kid she taught to ride a bike.

I collected them for three months and put them in a wooden box I painted with flowers. I gave it to her at breakfast on her birthday.

She opened the first one, from her best friend from high school, and started laughing. The second, from her old boss, made her cry. By the fifth, she was doing both at once. She read them all, one by one, for two hours, while her coffee went cold.

"I didn't know," she kept saying. "I didn't know anyone remembered that."

She keeps the box on her nightstand. She says she reads one every night before bed. I've started writing notes to people I love more often. It turns out everyone deserves a box like that.