Dear ThumbPrint News,
I’ll never forget the day I was sitting in the corner booth at Fox Fire Fixin’s in Algonac, Michigan and met owners, Al and Diane Kodet. We exchanged contact information and within a couple of weeks, they invited me to start writing for the ThumbPrint News. For so many years now, I’ve gone through my days and weeks, and tried my best to come up with encouraging words, and finding stories that cause one to go from tears to laughter unexpectedly because everyone who knows me, knows that “laughter from tears is my favorite emotion!” (A quote from Steel Magnolias – one of my all time favorite movies).
Over the years, I’ve received letters from people nearby, and a few from those several states away – every one of them filled with encouraging words – to me! I’m a pretty-stationery-loving, picky-about-my-pens, still-letter-writing girl, so getting a surprise letter forwarded to me through the newspaper always, always, always makes my day. Handwritten letters? Yeah, they rank right up there with sugar-coated gummy bears in my book! I once even received one from a relative I didn’t know I had, who recognized her Aunt and Uncle’s Farm when I wrote about their pet duck, “Dinky.” That one was certainly fun!
Over the past year, one of the special gifts I received was one of a friendship. Instead of finding an envelope in the mail with a handwritten letter inside, a FaceBook message came through from a reader. So we started chatting, and we became fast friends.
My new friend lives in Kentucky. We share the same faith. Encouraging words went back and forth, and soon we exchanged cell phone numbers. Prayer requests, reports of answered prayers, struggles, soon became the almost daily exchange between us. And a couple of months ago, my new friend from Kentucky came up to Michigan for some personal business, and it just so happened?? ….. Come on now, folks. NOTHING “just happens.” But like I said – it just so happened that she was about 20 minutes away. We kept in close touch, and were able to meet each other in person. It was, truly, the highlight of my dark and dreary, cold, wet, sun-less, can’t-make-up-it’s-mind-weather, and blustery months here in Michigan. Over bacon and eggs, my friend Ruth and I exchanged some of our favorite books, and got to know one another in person.
I’ve been known to make friends in some of the most unusual ways, and I’ve got stories (shocker, I know), that would really make you laugh at the origins of some of them. But this one? This one will go down in history as one of the sweetest.
So thank you, ThumbPrint News, for being the just-so-happened catalyst to put together two old souls who would become fast friends! And thank you, Al and Diane Kodet – for encouraging friendships and relationships in our community. What a sweet gift you continue to be to me!
Sincerely – Rita and Ruth
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