One of the pleasures of being a parent is the chance to discover things you missed as a child the first time. This week I found a copy of Mark Twain's "A Letter from Santa Claus" that he wrote in 1875 for his 3 year old daughter, Susie, to see on her pillow Christmas morning.
Santa assures Susie Clemens he read the letter she had scrawled for herself and her baby sister:
"(F)or although you did not use any characters that are in grown peoples' alphabet, you used the characters that all children in all lands on earth and in the twinkling stars use ..." he wrote.
But Santa Clemens says he couldn't make out some words in an adult's hand:
It is poignant to read this letter. Susie Clemens was especially close to her father, and became a writer, too. But she died of spinal meningitis when she was 24, and left a hole in her father's heart. What you can hear in the words of Mark Twain's Santa is a parent who, in this season and all others, wants to give his child the world.
"... If my boot should leave a stain on the marble," he has Santa write to Susie Clemens, "... Leave it there always in memory of my visit ...
Your loving SANTA CLAUS."
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