(submitted by: @Anonymous)
I almost said “I don’t know,” ‘cause I’m fortunate enough to receive a lot of compliments from a lot of people. But then I remembered a rare handful I’ve received that really moved me.
A few times over the years, I’ve received long messages/emails that are… I guess they’re obituaries in a sense, but really, they’re testimonies. Someone spends a lot of her time, carefully telling me about the man who shaped her life, who became her entire world, and all the years they spent together… and then she tells me of how he passed away, leaving her lost and alone in a way that a conventional widow could barely understand. The grief she conveys is like a sledgehammer to the heart.
And then she tells me that reading me makes her feel connected to him, like listening to an echo. That just by being here, I made it possible for her to carry on in his absence. That my existence made death something she could survive.
The first time I got one of those messages, it changed the way I look at all of this and what I do.