You Never Know

Each week I receive a column via email. The column is written by a woman with MS. This woman is known as a humor columnist. I’m not sure the title is entirely appropriate, but for lack of a better title, this is what she is. The article is generally written one month previous and is emailed when it appears in her local newspaper. A selected group receives the column by email. It is also posted on a web page on the internet.

I stumbled upon this column quite strangely. I was researching missing persons for our high school reunion database and received an anonymous email with a link to the web page. I started reading about this woman. I don’t remember her from high school, but the column has become my weekly conversation with her. She’s two days younger than I and she totally amazes me.

The columns are little glimpses into her life. She talks about her pets, her aide, her husband, and sunshine. She loves the sunshine. Her strength and optimism are astounding. She no longer has the strength in her voice to use the voice-to-text function of her computer, so she dictates her column and someone types it for her. She’s very vocal about handicap parking and wheelchair access as well.

She wrote once about having to replace the small appliances in her kitchen. These appliances were dear to her because they had apple appliqués on them. After purchasing new appliances and exiting the store, she remembered the appliqués and immediately turned back into Wal Mart to find some. It was a lost cause. There were none to be found.

I happened across some apple stickers in the dollar store one day. I remembered her story and bought a couple of packs to send her. She dutifully applied them to all of her appliances when she received them and her kitchen was back to normal.

Another time, she wrote about hooded sweatshirts with attached mittens. She couldn’t find them any where. She had searched high and low on the internet for them. The sister of the man who originally made these sweatshirts showed up at her door one day with several samples for her.

When she wrote about a magazine that she and her husband were starting, I subscribed. I also reviewed the magazine for a newsletter I was writing at a time. The second year of my subscription is almost over, but I will renew again. This magazine even published one of the poems I submitted. One feature that I missed in the last issue was a submission from my friend. All other issues contained something by her. The last one didn’t. I missed it.

I would feel the same way if the email suddenly stopped. I would miss it terribly. The email tells me that she’s doing alright. I have to remember to account for the fact that the article was written a month earlier. Awhile back, the web site hadn’t been updated for a few weeks. I emailed her to make sure everything was okay. It turned out that the friend who updates the web page had fallen behind. Ever since then, I’ve been on the email list.

I suppose the whole point of this post is that our writing can affect people in ways that we cannot possibly imagine. This gives us one more reason to write and write well.