thank you for choosing your words so well

thank you for running your fingers on books on their shelves

thank you for being the parent I didn't have

thank you for reading to me

thank you for speaking with me about the unspeakable

thank you for not using emojis

thank you for helping me arrange my toy animals around my head in bed every night so that each of them touched my head

thank you for carrying me to sleep

thank you for treating my feelings for you so respectfully

thank you for showing me how to glue pebbles together to make castles

thank you for making me see my prejudices

thank you for pushing me to evolve

thank you for telling me it takes many years of unlearning to start to find one's voice

thank you for believing in me and telling that to me

thank you for helping me see there's more to life than pleasing others, living up to standards, and wanting to be the best

thank you for teaching me how to floss properly

thank you for nurturing my sense of wonder

thank you for loving so many of the same books as me

thank you for telling me to go for the thing that lit up my eyes

thank you for not asking me to be anything that I'm not

thank you for believing I could change

thank you for waiting for me

thank you for telling me not to go out in the winter with wet hair

thank you for being so genuinely interested in me

thank you for placing a small gift secretly into my pocket

thank you for trusting your child in my care

thank you for inviting us children to your home and letting us see how an artist's home can be like

thank you for saying that it's ok to feel that the other children are like another species

thank you for letting me spend so much time in the library

thank you for seeing potential in me when I didn't

thank you for bringing me fresh croissants in the morning when I deserved them the least

thank you for laughing with me when the situation was too bad for anything else than laughter

thank you for saying it's ok to clean the mess tomorrow

thank you for having tea with me for the last time

thank you for going on long walks with me

thank you for reading in bed

thank you for your warm skin

thank you for making me uncomfortable

thank you for instantly liking me as much as I instantly liked you

thank you for trusting me enough to put your life in my hands

thank you for crossing the line

thank you for showing me your insecurities

thank you for playing the piano in the evenings after I had gone to bed

thank you for waking me up in the middle of the night, so I could see a calf being born

thank you for loving my body

thank you for building a community where I finally felt I have come home

thank you for being the worst thing that ever happened to me

thank you for being one of the few people whose existence makes me feel I'm not existing alone

thank you for never pretending that Santa or God would be real

thank you for taking me to feed the ducks on the weekends

thank you for letting me figure things out on my own

thank you for never treating me as a less capable being just because I was a child

thank you for taking off the scary tiger mask and becoming a person again, holding me and telling me the tiger will never come back again

thank you for being there when I drove my bike without training wheels for the first time

thank you for your honesty even though it was not what I would have hoped to hear

thank you for not letting me fall

thank you for sharing my sense of humour, most of the time

thank you for always understanding when I'm being serious and when I'm making fun of myself

thank you for walking home with me

thank you for being the best first boyfriend anyone could have

thank you for introducing me to so much music

thank you for drying me with a towel

thank you for never calling me a nerd just because I was intensely interested in everything

thank you for thinking independently

thank you for saying everything would be fine even though we both knew it wouldn't

thank you for the note you left for me to find

thank you for becoming a part of my family

thank you for all your postcards

thank you for asking me to teach you

thank you for being so much like the person I wanted to be that it forced me to start becoming that person

thank you for trying to teach me how to be organised and do one thing at a time

thank you for teaching me things I understood only years later

thank you for keeping your word

thank you for not letting me kill ants with a hammer

thank you for showing me how to pet a cat in a way that the cat doesn't get upset

thank you for letting me take a break

thank you for letting me read books while the other kids were learning the alphabet

thank you for not keeping your distance

thank you for trying to teach me over and over again how to jump into the water head-first

thank you for forcing me to get up from the snow when I was too drunk to do anything but sleep

thank you for playing in the fallen maple leaves with me

thank you for teaching me how to be hospitable

thank you for understanding my need to be by myself

thank you for kissing your arm when our bodies were so intertwined you thought your arm was mine

thank you for teaching me not to consider myself above or below anyone

thank you for not laughing when my joke wasn't funny

thank you for building me a nest of blankets

thank you for wading in the river with me

thank you for forcing me to go out

thank you for leaving