If you and your wife recover and get a chance to see some yellow flowering camellias. I think someone once said there were some growing in China.

What a beauty though! I had an inordinate number of striking bugs and arachnids in the garden this year and I know just how you feel about this love/hate relationship we experience in observing these predators!

Maybe this is way off base, but what's wrong with picking up the phone and calling to confirm receipt of the gift? I think I'd just forget about the emails and call and just ask if the gift had been received and state my concerns, as if I'd never even sent the email. In other words, I'd act on the assumption (whether true or false) that the emails had not been read. If she said anything about the emails I'd just say, Oh, since I didn't hear back from you I figured they hadn't gone through. On the topic of Thank you notes, I'm not as nice as gellchom (I already knew that!). I'm one who thinks that people who don't send thank you notes don't need any more gifts. So... here's my story of an ungrateful recipient. A daughter of a friend's apartment caught on fire, she escaped with her life and singed eyebrows! Several of uss dug into our closets to give her some basic items to help her make a new start, I gave sheets, a lamp, some other odds & ends. Subsequently she got pregnant. I (along with others) gave her a baby shower and a very nice gift. I gave her a gift when I visited her in the hospital, and another gift when I visited her later at her mother's house. For all of this I received no thank you note. Neither did any of the other shower-givers. I felt like I'd done a lot for this girl and yet she could not take a moment to sit down and write even one note to me. A few months later she got married. I attended the wedding but gave no gift. I figured I'd about done all I needed to for this girl. Thank you notes are important. As has been said above, the giver has given time, effort and expense to you and the few minutes it takes to write a note is not a lot to ask. And it should be done in a timely manner. A year is not timely. I'm afraid that gifts have become expected so that some people think they are owed. That's too bad. A gift isn't supposed to cover the cost of attendance at the wedding or meet any other criteria except that it should be given from the heart. And I agree that I'm not giving a gift in order to receive anything in return per se, but if I give from the heart and don't feel that the recipient has similar feelings in his/her heart for me, it doesn't make me want to rush out and buy yet another gift for that person. A thank you note is such a simple and easy way for a recipient to say, I appreciate and return your feelings. Both of my sons were raised to send thank you notes for all gifts. They both had to address the envelopes themselves as well as write the note (when they were old enough to). My older son writes great notes which have humor and gratitude. My younger son tends to write two line notes. But either way, they understand the importance of the written note.

thanks everyone for your condolences. we are totally devastated. my sister, her DH & DD will never be the same. we have a long, difficult road ahead of us. i guess i should clear this up a little. we did not send thank-you's for sympathy card, eg. hallmark card. we sent them to people who sent mass cards, which have to be paid for, food, flowers and donations made in his name. the out-pouring was AMAZING!! we are so grateful. i agree, no thank you necessary for sympathy card. *usually* you get a notice that a donation was made in that person's memory. we received them for my mom 3 years ago and they are getting them for their son. FWIW, the organization should definitely let the family know how much and from whom they received it from. thanks again everyone!