Special People At Gather 1/13/2013 Nancy S.

I posted Thursday's challenge this week to create a post about a special person or a hero who also is a member of Gather. Like so many of my fellow Gather members I believe that there are so many who are a part of Gather who should be written about. Unlike some I don't believe that there are too many people to write about as I believe I need to write about each one of these wonderful people one at a time. If it takes me many years so be it. Over the next several months and maybe years I will attempt to pay tribute to a great many of you. If I haven't written a tribute to you yet your turn is coming.

For today I am paying tribute to a lady whose tribute is long over due, a lady filled with kindness, caring, love and respect especially for her children,grandchildren and family but extending out to her friends, those who are hurting who she may never have even met, and to those who have disabilities mental and physical. I may have missed a group that she cares about but I know that with her ability to forgive that she will forgive me too.

This wonderful lady is Nancy S. She is a lady who has had more than her share of heartbreak but instead of allowing it to harden her she dug deep within herself to allow to grow kinder even more caring than she was before if that is possible.

I became Nancy's friend not because I reached out to her but because she reached out to me. I hadn't been part of Gather very long and was attempting to create readable posts though some of them were barely that. Nancy saw something in my writing worth reading at first and soon after offered me her friendship. I consider it a great honor to call her my friend. Nancy along with a few others including Jan S. supported and encourage my writing back then and inspired me to push through the early struggle until one day I stopped thinking of my writing as a hobby and began to think of it as something I love to do, something I need to do and something I think I am good at. I have learned to feel this way because of good friends like Nancy and Jan. I cannot now nor ever will be able to thank her enough.

Before I began to write this attempt at a tribute for Nancy I went back through her posts. Many of her posts are about her beloved family some about her her grandson who is autistic, her beautiful, handsome, intelligent and successful children and grandchildren. Still others are about autism itself, others are about the fight against cancer and still others about her strong faith. Her posts reflect where her heart is, I did not read even one post where there was any self pity no matter what was going on her life. In each post I felt a sense of love, a sense of wonder, a sense of gratitude and a sense of caring. Every post I saw or read I came away with a feeling of awe.

The world is indeed a dark place but I believe that God provides men and women like Nancy to make the world a better place, a warmer place and a brighter place, to lighten the dark world we live in.

Now Nancy is in the fight of her life when she needs to feel the love, kindness and caring that she has shown so many for so long to come back to her in waves. She needs to know how much she means to us. Nancy if you have a chance to read this post; For all that you are thank you, for the depth of your care thank you, for the kindness that you show by example day after day thank you. Most of all thank you for being a friend to so many of us on Gather and elsewhere. As you fight your fight please know that many of us every day are not as you wrote in one of your post, "not just saying that they are praying for you" but are actively doing just that as you have done for so many. Nancy please know that for this Gather member and for many others I think I count the day we became friends a good day indeed.