Hello and good day!
I'm coming to the end of editing my book on the history of our chocolate company. I wrote the rough draft and along with my wonderful mom, we have rewritten it several times now.
We're doing our best to make it entertaining and educational and adventurous and inspiring. We also want our wonderful readers to see what was happening up close and personal.
Over the last 15 years we have taken a ton of photos documenting our journey. Many of these photos will be included in the book so that you don't always have to rely on the text and your imagination to try to create an image in your mind of the events.
Our photos were saved in a few different places, one of which was a hard drive that was in my brother Brian's possession. On that hard drive, my brother had also saved a bunch of pictures of his family.
I haven't been snooping too much in his personal photos, but there are certain things I am trying to dig up for the book. I don't want to leave any stone unturned in my search for the best pictures available.
As I am looking, I can't help but notice that my brother has a ton of pictures of his kids. Baby pictures. All kinds of firsts. First steps. First time eating solid foods. There are many pictures of sporting events. Soccer. Karate.
Dance contests. Volleyball tournaments.
Again, I am not snooping. These photos are where I can't really avoid them. But here is something that is becoming very clear. My brother Brian deeply loves his children.
This inspired me to go back and look at some of the pictures I've taken of my kids over the years. We have a ton too. My wife and I love our children more than words can ever express.
And that got me to thinking. No matter how hard you try to make it known, nobody can ever really know how much you care. That is because nobody can feel what you feel or think what you think.
We are all isolated in our own brains and can only truly experience our own thoughts and feelings.
Add to that the fact that kids don't have much perspective and don't realize just how important certain things become as you get older. Those times when your kids are little, and you are snapping off a million photos of every little milestone, end up being so meaningful when you think back on them.
When you hug your kids tightly, they have no idea how bad you just want to squeeze them and hold them forever. But you can't. And they won't know how deeply you feel for them until they are all grown up.
There are a lot of other things like that too, at least for me. My wife probably won't ever really comprehend how much I love her. I can write a high volume of words, but words can't say what she means to me and she can't feel what I feel so my words would always be a shallow reflection of what I am trying to say.
Likewise with our chocolate company.
The fact that I write about our chocolate company every day is a good clue to how much I care. However, it is pretty hard to express the fact that this company is actually a culmination of a lifetime of effort on the part of my father to build a family business.
It is hard to put into words the fact that my older brother has always been the hero of my life and what he has been through to keep this business alive makes him a giant to me.
My mom can't really know how much I appreciate her hard work and effort helping me with the book, and how much her positivity and encouragement have always meant to me and my brother.
It is also hard to express how surreal it still is after all these years that people actually like what we make. Every review and every positive email that you all send to us means more than we can say.
Believe me. If you could feel what I feel when somebody says something nice about our company, it would be very easy for you to understand why we try so hard.
From here, the list could go on and on.
There are so many people that all of us care deeply for, but who will never fully be able to understand how much we care about them because words and promises, and even actions, can't make them feel what we feel.
When I see a hard drive filled with baby pictures, I know what those pictures mean to my brother and how he felt when he took them, because I felt the same way.
Brian's daughter is a teenager now and she is probably very blasé about how much her dad loves her. I'm sure that deep down it means a lot, but if she really knew, I mean if she really, really knew, and if my kids really, really knew, they would never be casual about it.
A parent's love for their children is not a light thing.
Love is a heavy thing.
Passion is a heavy thing.
But words just aren't good enough to get it done. You have to feel it to really understand it, and nobody can feel any feelings but their own.
It is a conundrum.
Anyhow, thank you so much for your time today.
I hope that you have a truly blessed day!
