The Kindness Of Not-Quite Strangers

This has been a trying month.

The Poo turned three, and with that came a sea change in her. Her equilibrium is off, and therefore so is mine. She’s been really sick, and so have I. Christmas is stressful for us in so many ways, and I know this is also affecting her mood and behavior.

It’s a sad state of affairs when what I am looking forward to the most over the next seven days is the car ride to Ohio.

Oy.

Friday was a busy day, getting ready for an unexpected and, frankly, unwanted visit from yet another in-law. Pulling up to my front door after a morning of silly errands, I notice a large envelope at my front door.

Inside, I picked it up and looked at the address, expecting it to be another holiday package.

And it was, but it was for me.

Inside was a Starbucks gift card and a very thoughtful book and CD for The Poo. The note was extraordinarily kind. So kind, in fact, that right there in my kitchen my jaw dropped and then I actually cried.

Who was this package from?

From Amy Jo, writer of Cheese Party.

Awhile back she asked for my address and I gave it to her, expecting maybe a Christmas card. I did get one of those, brimming over with photos of her adorable family.

But imagine my surprise to see a gift, for me, from a woman whose voice I’ve never heard, except in my mind.

I was floored by the thoughtfulness.

I started this blog at a time when I felt extremely isolated. I was a new stay-at-home mother with a driven husband, few close friends and a mother who was wandering the dense thicket of new widowhood. My sister was 1,000 miles away and I was bereft over the loss of my father.

I never thought anyone but a few friends would visit here and read my words. I wrote out of desperation, out of a keen desire for kinship, out of loneliness that seemed insurmountable.

Friday morning a friend reached out to me across miles and miles of wire and cable and told me that what I write, the words that for so long fell on deaf ears, touched her.

Amy, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I can never express how much your gesture meant to me.

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you, my dear, dear friends.