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With My Hand Out and My Heart Open
By Nancy Lindquist | April 17, 2007
This is a re-print of my Goat Rodeo Blog Post from the seventeenth of April. It’s important.
This is going to be a plea for money. Wait, don’t hit the X! I don’t do this very often. It’s not going to be a regular thing. I swear.
I’d like to tell you about two of my friends. Both dear to my heart.
The first is Serenity. I could always count on Serenity when I was down. She knew. How? I didn’t’ care. She just did. She was there for me, really there and I don’t think I deserved it, but I’m not about to look a gift-horse in the mouth. She called me every day when I was in the hospital trying not to have JJ. No one else did that. NO ONE. She offered to get in her car and drive to Michigan, from Wisconsin. My own father never came to see me. I was there for eight weeks. Eight weeks of terror with Serenity as my only touchstone in a world that went from predictable to horrific. People think bed rest is a good thing. It’s not. Your muscles atrophy, your heart follows. You forget about the baby, you just want to intermittent labor to stop. Serenity soothed my soul. She never said, “You’re doing it for the baby.” She knew I had a handle on that. Everyone else was baby-focused. Serenity listened to my heart and heard what it meant to say.
Then, there’s Sue. Again, someone I don’t deserve, but that’s okay. I don’t need to deserve her, just love her. She makes me smile. She works so hard at it. She works at it while her health is a disaster area.
Serenity is gone. She died two and a half years ago from an aggressive form of breast cancer. The same cancer Sue has. Sue is in the fight of her life. I want her to win with all my heart. The honest truth is, I may not get my wish.
So, I’m coming to you, hand out, begging support. Sue and I have a dear friend, Loretta. She’s funny, sincere and giving. So giving she’s agreed to get out and hoof sixty miles if people will donate the money she needs to make the hike. I’m behind her. She’s walking in the Breast Cancer Three Day, in the name of Serenity and Sue. She just honors my Serenity so much. A woman she never met, but loves because I love her. In a world filled with hate, Loretta is the spirit of love. I have a lot of friends like that. I’m a lucky woman (waving at Amy, cause she’s peaches too).
I’m not so rich in friends that I can afford let one more friend die. I’ve lost Serenity. I don’t want to lose Sue. The world needs people like her. Desperately.
So, I would be honored, humbled and moved if you would go to Loretta’s site and donate something, so she can walk for three days. If you can’t, that’s fine. I get financial issues. I’ve got em myself. But if you can, anything at all. Every penny helps.
Because I am so behind Loretta and her big plan, I will send a free E-book with five of my published poems to anyone who tells me they donated. I’m going to send them out at the end of June. So just drop me a note between now and then to let me know you’ve done it. I’ll put you in the list and I will believe you. Further, I will pick one person to receive a full collection of all my published works. To be sent after the fifteenth of August. That’s five stories. I’ll send an autographed print copy of, “How to Conjure a Man.” If you don’t read my type of book, that’s okay. I can send hand dipped chocolates and a lovely gift basket of lotions and soaps instead. I have a wonderful source for some fabulous stuff that my friend, AE Rought turned me onto. Not everyone wants to read ultra steamy romance, with words that will make you blush. I’m not offended if it’s not for you.
We can get breast cancer licked. I know it. Please help me and make Loretta’s dream to walk a reality. More than that, please help me do something positive to help someone who is living with this horrible illness. Sue means the world to me. She’s precious and I don’t want to lose her.
To donate to Loretta’s walk, click here.
I just don’t want one more woman to hear, “I’m sorry, you have breast cancer.”
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart,
Nancy
