Really connecting
I received an email from a woman in England the other day. She had reached out to me several months ago about her daughter, an alcoholic, but I hadn’t heard from her since that initial discussion. Originally she just wanted to “converse” with someone who understood addiction. I don’t think she was looking for any answers. She just needed to be heard by someone who understood what she was feeling.
Anyway, I heard from her again. Her daughter died. She needed to tell me, and she also wanted to thank me for the comfort I had given her, in that initial email, and in my articles about alcoholism.
I am humbled!
What we do, as writers, matters.
Never doubt that fact.
And what we do as human beings matters.
Never doubt that fact.
It is so easy to lose sight of that point. We lock ourselves away in a spare bedroom, office, or writing studio, and we pour out the words, one-thousand, two-thousand, three-thousand and more, day after day, week after week, in some cases reclusive by choice, no other human contact, and then we publish and we start all over again . . . but our words, published, go out there to the seven billion, and for some our words mean a great deal, a human contact, an understanding, a touch of empathy when most needed . . .
Really connecting
And that is, in my opinion, a miracle!
I now have a friend for life, that mother in England, suffering from a terrible loss, all because my words reached her at exactly the moment she needed them . . . one person touching another . . .
A miracle!
Do not mistake . . . this is not about me or how great I am or any of that other nonsense. This is about the importance of caring, and the importance our words can have. Two human beings making meaningful contact and connection . . .
Tears
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 