Dear Children,

Thank you all for the letters you send me, the ones you put on paper, or on screens, and the ones written just in your dreams and hearts. I get those too, you know, every last one, whether you believe in me or not. I hear you wishing for so many wonderful toys and gadgets, amazing things that I do try to see that you get. I hear you wishing things for other people too, brothers and sisters, friends and relatives, and those wishes warm my heart. They show your love. With whatever magic I have, I do try to make them all come true. I also hear the bigger, harder wishes, ones I wish I could fulfill, but that are beyond my power and don’t fit in Christmas stockings or under trees.

I do hear them all, Dear Ones, of being hurt or frightened, of loved ones lost so many different ways, of the terror of war and such, of hunger and cold, and of ways grownups can fail you. I can’t fix those things. All this old elf can do is keep trying to bring a bit more joy and love into the world and hope that that will help change those things for the better. And, I can send you all a song that says better than I can what I wish for all of you.

Love,

Santa

Bob Wertzler is retired from almost twenty years in the mental health field in California and Arizona. There are times the title, “Recovering Therapist”, seems to fit. In 2006 he retired to move to Western North Carolina to help and become primary care giver for his father who had developed Dementia. Before all that, there was work at various times as a soldier (US Army 1967-70), community organizer, cab driver, welfare case worker, wooden toy maker, carpenter, warehouse worker, and other things. He relates to a line in a Grateful Dead song, “What a long, strange trip its been.”