From: "Etsuko Iwaki"
To: jfnーML: [ Merry Christmas］
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2003
岩城＠１９７２です。 クリスマスに英文小話を贈ります。

Dear friends,
I hope we all can learn something from this story.
Not every thing is about physical things we can touch and feel.
There are also more important things like love and care which bring us hope and peace.
I received this from a friend who had a choice to make.
It said that I had a choice to make too.
I've chosen.
Now it's your turn to choose.

The story goes that some time ago a mother punished her 5 year old daughter for wasting a roll of expensive gold wrapping paper.
Money was tight and she became even more upset when the child used the gold paper to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.
Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift box to her mother the next morning and said, "This is for you, Mamma."
The mother was embarrassed by her earlier over reaction, but her anger flared again when she opened the box and found it was empty.
She spoke to her daughter in a harsh manner. "Don't you know, young lady, when you give someone a present there's supposed to be something inside the package?"
She had tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, Mamma, it's not empty! I blew kisses into it until it was full."
The mother was crushed.
She fell on her knees and put her arms around her little girl, and she begged her forgiveness for her thoughtless anger.

An accident took the life of the child only a short time later, and it is told that the mother kept that gold box by her bed for all the years of her life.
Whenever she was discouraged or faced difficult problems she would open the box and take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

In a very real sense, each of us, as human beings, have been given a Golden box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children,family and friends
There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.

You now have two choices:
1. Pass this on to your friends,
or 2. Delete it and act like it didn't touch your heart.
As you can see, I took choice No. 1.
Friends are like angels who lift us to our feet, when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.
以上