The Power of Words From the Heart

Read the handwritten ER doctor’s note
 that's gone viral on Reddit: 'via Blog this'

This is the handwritten condolence note to a man who'd recently lost his wife to breast cancer.  It is from the ER doctor who treated his wife a few hours before her death.  For the first time in her career she sent a personal note to a family because this woman, in spite of her pain, and been 'engaging and cheerful' and the loving bond between the couple had so moved her. (Gender is a collective guess of those commenting on Reddit based on the handwriting.)

It was the son of the couple who posted the photo on Reddit, remarking that it had changed his life.

This story has moved me on many levels.  The obvious personal encounters aspects of the story in which individuals impact each other's lives both unwittingly and on purpose by their behaviors has me enthralled of course.  This is a good story even in this minimalist state and I can imagine it as a movie or novel.  But I believe there is another level to these encounters: the spiritual level of human interconnection.  That would be another post.  Though I'm not sure I could express my thoughts without writing a novel.

The level of personal encounter might have been the aspect I'd have most likely expounded on a few weeks ago.  Now, because this is the latest of several recent encounters that have reminded me of the power of writing by hand.  In February I checked out a book from the library, The Golden Thread: A History of Writing by Ewan Clayton, which is the story of the alphabets and writing tools from the early stone tablets to the digital age. [a book I'd like to own because of it's exquisite line drawings and photos] This got me thinking about the difference between various writing tools and the impacts each has on the output.

Of course this led to personal reminiscence for I'd been writing stories for over two decades before my first word processor in my early thirties and even tho I'd taught myself to type at age 11 on my mother's typewriter and received my own for my 13th birthday, I'd always written my rough drafts by hand.  While working on the rewrite of Candy Kiss I happened to write a few paragraphs on clean paper while reading through the hard copy and was thrown into a time warp where I wrung out some insights.  I've been working on a post about that which is not ready to go live yet.

I was thinking about saving this image for that post but decided it deserved its own post.