With Appreciation And Gratitude
With Appreciation And Gratitude
To the Editor:
Have you ever passed judgment on volunteer firemen? Have you ever made a cynical comment or poked fun at them behind their back? You know, âThereâs a cat in the tree and every volunteer fireman in town shows up with their blue lights.â Almost every single person that Iâve talked to and said, âI have a whole new level of respect for volunteer firemen and will never make negative comments about them againâ has responded with, âYea â Iâve done that too.â
Donât get me wrong, Iâve never passed up on emptying all the money in my wallet in a fundraising firemanâs boot or to the guys in the truck driving around house to house asking for donations. The real issue that I have with myself is that I donât think I truly appreciated them.
Based on my prior judgment, I didnât deserve to be saved by them, but they saved us anyway. The amazing thing is that the words âbecause itâs their jobâ would go so well with that statement, but itâs not true. Those men and women donât get paid to do it. Itâs not their âjob.â They are husbands, wives, dads, moms, boyfriends, girlfriends or someoneâs son or daughter.
So to every volunteer firefighter in Newtown (Botsford, Sandy Hook, Hawleyville, Dodgingtown, and Newtown Hook & Ladder) who responded to our house fire on December 8 at 2 in the morning while most everyone else was sleeping, including us, Thank You!
Those two words donât come close to how much we appreciate everything it is that you do.
With love and gratitude,
Mike, Tammy and Daniel Gruber
(The Furry Grubers, too â Huey, Sienna, Sheba, and Ollie)
Little Brook Lane, Newtown                                      January 3, 2012