Billy Ray Simmons

Dear Nana & Papa,

I want to write you a thank you letter. I want to thank you for taking me in at 9 months old and raising me to become the young woman I am today. I want to thank you for your love and encouragement. Nana, I want to thank you for making sure I have what I need and most of what I want. Thank you for loving me at my worst and forgiving me when I don't try my best. Thank you for your words of wisdom and letting me lie in bed with you on school nights and watch reruns of every lifetime movie ever filmed. Thank you for filling the place my mother didn't know how to. Thank you, you are my mom in every way. Papa, my bestfriend, her, and the only dad I've ever known, I want to thank you for being right about everything and teaching me that everything is better homemade. Thank you for being my biggest fan at all my basketball games and showing up to all my track meets. Looking up and seeing you stand there smiling was the most incredible sense of happiness. Thanks for sitting in the doctor's office with me, because even though I was 17, I still cried till you came in and sat with me. I needed to know you were there and that everything was okay. Thank you for telling me the "gas is on the right and the brake is on the left" and that I can "just use one foot at a time, instead of both". I want to thank you, nana and papa, for being my everything. Nana, losing you soon before my graduation was heartbreaking. You worked so hard to get me there. But I know you were sitting there on the field with me and It was that much more comforting. Papa, losing you while at college orientation was the most undescribable feeling. I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest and the world was over. I'll admit, losing you both withing 4 months and moving to college alone was hard, but you did and amazing job and I won't let you down. I am thanking you both for not only being the best grandparents, but also my parents. I love and miss you both.

Rebekah