Reach Out and Touch Someone

It was a wonderful start to my day.  "Wonderful" doesn't begin to cover it.  It was reassuring, it was loving, it was affirming, it was warm; it was so many good things.  It was an email.

I'd awakened a little bit before the alarm was to go off, and while the tea water was heating, I went to my email.  There was one with the intriguing subject line "I've been meaning to write this for a long time," and the sender's address was vaguely familiar.

It turned out to be from a blogger I've followed for several years now.  We'd had some communication on a couple of things a long time ago.  And then I stopped hearing from her; she'd assured me that nothing was wrong, but I doubted.  Felt unsettled about it for a little while.  And around the same time I noticed that I no longer had her email, she deleted it from her profile. 

I continued to follow her blog and leave comments; she did the same for me.  But I missed her.  I missed that occasional personal contact.  And continued to have that niggling feeling that somehow I'd hurt or offended her. She's bright, she's articulate, she's funny.  She's a woman of faith, a quilter, and so much more.  She's the kind of person I wish would join my women's Circle at church.  Except she lives Far From Philadelphia.  I missed her.

And then, out of the blue, this email came, that said, in part, "For some reason right now . . . I feel a need to drop you a note and tell you that you are special to me."  She went on to list the ways, the reasons that supported this statement, and ended with "my life would be less rich without you."

I do not have the words to tell you how that made me feel.  But I believe you can imagine.  When was the last time someone said that to me?  To you?  When was the last time I said anything like that to anyone?  When did you?

And so I vow to change that.  Like Kim's more tangible "Share the Love" campaign, I propose a "Reach Out and Touch Someone" movement.  I was so moved by this email that I went to the internet and learned a new skill -- I've developed a button to remind me to take the time to send an email every now and then to someone to tell her that "you are special to me," to let him know that "my life would be less rich without you."

Wanna join me?  Grab the button.  And send that email.

Thank you, friend.  Just look what you've started!


Comments

Pat said…
You paragraph "Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, an email came...." blew me away! Chills. Weepy eyes.

My mother always used get annoyed at elaborate floral funeral dispays & come away muttering "Why do they always wait until the person's dead to send flowers?" She had a point.

I need to find that button.
Jo in TAS said…
That is so beautiful Nancy,I'm going to participate in this too.
Kimberly Mason said…
Yeah! LOVE the idea! Thank you. Button grabbed.
altar ego said…
The same sentiment echoes in my mind regularly. I am full of good intentions and short on follow-through on too many of those. Time to work on. One at a time. One day at a time. Thanks for posting this. I'll go grab the button, too!
altar ego said…
For some reason the code for the button just wouldn't take on my blog (I copied and pasted, I hand typed it, nothing worked). So, I found another image to use that speaks to this and have linked it to this post. See my side bar! Thanks again for the inspiration.