Friends and Relatives

It's amazing what a small amount of kindness can do. As a bit of background - I have a virtual pet - a frog - on Super Poke Pets (want to friend my pet? Email me directly). Hopper is a happy frog who celebrated my birthday with me by indulging in a Hobbit tradition - that of giving gifts to others on our own birthdays. So, starting Sunday night and continuing into Monday, I gave a gift of breast-cancer awareness tulips to each of my virtual pet friends (almost 300 of them). In return I received 48 fabulous gifts from others and more than 100 happy birthday wishes. What a wonderful day it was :-)

And my cousin, my best friend as we were growing up, also wrote a great Email to me. Both of us are adopted children, but we approach our adoptions with slightly different perspectives. I have to assume that it is because we were raised differently, but everyone has different things that they consider vital. She send a short document detailing her feelings about adoption. My response to her included the following:

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"I thank my birth mother for her courage. I don't want additional relatives, and I will come down with health issues if it is in my future - my past won't change that. I am secure that I was blessed to have been brought up in a country of plenty where females are treated with respect and where personal endeavors are not only approved but encouraged. I feel unbearably fortunate in my life - the little things that caused X to happen, which caused Y to happen, and which caused Z to happen. Paths taken can never be rewalked or changed, and I don't think I would want to. I had my usual problems during adolescence, but I know, now and forever, that I had parents who truly loved me and who enriched my life with their loves of music, literature, and history. My life has continued past their boundaries into my own life, shared with my best friend and a host of other characters, all of whom contribute to who I am today. I have no regrets, and I have no real desires to change anything and refuse to add to any of the evil in the world by thinking in any negative fashions about what was, basically, an extremely positive experience. I always had the security of knowing that I was a 100% wanted child because I was personally chosen to be the daughter of my parents. How many others can say so much. "

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Help someone in your own life to feel loved and cherished today, and encourage them in their own endeavors and creativity. The pay-off can be magnificant and can transcend borders of nations and beliefs.