If I could tack a p.s. onto the 11 year old's letter, it would be this line from WB Yeats:

We can make our minds
so like still water
that beings gather about us
that they may see,
it may be,
their own images,
and so live for a moment
with a clearer,
perhaps even with
a fiercer life
because of our quiet.

You've done this.

Amy Leary
January 22, 2010