Thanking Anne

I'm horrible at sending thank you letters. Anyone who's related to me will tell you that gifts given on or around Christmas might be acknowledged in writing some time around Valentine's Day, if at all, and frankly, that's only if you're a part of Mr. Milkweed's family. (And sometimes not even then, because sometimes I wait so long that I can't remember which aunt and uncle sent which gift to which child, resulting in a kind of horrifying paralysis that leads to no note being written to anyone for anything. This may or may not be currently the case.)

Within my own family, there's this kind of gelatinous ooze of lowered expectations when it comes to formal etiquette, and in general we don't send thank you letters at all. I tend to think this is only natural since we hardly even ate dinner together, but is it right? And should I be perpetuating it? No, and no. And yet.

All of this is to say that if you ever receive a thank you note from me, and if it's (gasp) actually timely, you've either made an enormous impact on my life or I'm gripped with a guilt so fierce at my typically noteless stasis that I've resolved to turn over a new leaf.

I mention thank you notes today because just a few minutes ago, while wasting time on Facebook rather than folding laundry, I noticed an article about how the Madame Tussauds wax museum in Berlin has added a statue of Anne Frank.

Here she is:



Isn't she beautiful?

Anne and I have a long history together. I credit two women for helping me survive Catholic school: Mary, who I blogged about a long time ago, and Anne Frank. And actually, both have helped me with far more than just school. I don't have a favorite Mary statue in Richmond yet, although I'm looking and open to suggestions because I miss her, but a picture of Anne hangs on the wall of our bedroom. If I have anything like a totem or favorite object, it's that Anne picture. She's a personal saint.

I can't really relate what it was like feeling as lost as I did in middle school and reading Anne's diary for the first time. To see so many of my own thoughts and feelings written down by a girl who'd lived so many years earlier and who'd perished as part of one of the greatest tragedies in human history was one thing, of course. But it was the sweet simplicity of her optimism in the human spirit even as she went without going outside for two years because of active persecution by evil personified...


May 16, 1940: German troops are welcomed by Dutch Nazis as they enter Amsterdam.

Evil she could see walking the streets and hear during raids on the office building where she hid...


Anne Frank House pictured from the rear.
The top window in the center building belongs to the Annex.


Evil that ripped her nuclear family apart from its wider familial net and would eventually separate them further...


Otto Frank, Anne's father and the only member
of the Frank family to survive the Holocaust

It was and is that optimism that I return to on a daily basis. Because every day I look at that picture, and every day I read those words that everybody knows:

"It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."

(So you know how Christians are always doing stuff like taking the words of the prophet Isaiah and saying "Oooooohhh, look, he's totally taking about Jesus here! And here! And here!" even when Isaiah wasn't predicting Jesus himself, per se? Yeah, well. Just forgive me for what's next.)

Anne's words have meant many different things to me at many different times, but lately when I read them I can't help but be reminded how, even during intense periods of skepticism, doubt, and apathy, God has perpetuated this little flame of somethingness in my life that has eventually grown into a game changer. I need to thank God for that, but first, I need to thank Anne. I need to thank her for writing, and for being herself, and for surviving both then and well after her young life was taken away.

So, Anne: thank you. From the bottom of my heart. And I'm sorry this note has been so delayed.