No ... Thank YOU

As those of you who follow my blog know, turning Fabulous Shoe Night from an idea into a workable vehicle to help charities has kept me very busy during the past few months. We have long-range goals we've been working toward, bit by bit, every day, and are sometimes able to discern the baby steps of our slow but steady progress. Being so focused on the "big picture" can have it's drawbacks, though … and I have come to realize that my myopia can occasionally cause me to miss the forest while looking through the trees.

We at Fabulous Shoe Night have big plans for our future. Big. Really big. But in my mind's eye, and deep within my heart … I have even bigger plans that I have revealed to precious few. Impossibly big. To quote Steve Jobs, "Make a dent in the universe" kind of big. 

So when I received a note, quite unexpectedly, telling me how one of our FSN events made a positive impact on the life of a young woman battling cancer, far from home, it helped hone and redefine the importance of continuing to help in our own backyard … regardless of whatever huge vision we may have.

Below is the note I received from an oncology nurse at a local hospital. 

"I am contacting you to express gratitude to you on behalf of one of my patients who is a newly diagnosed Breast cancer survivor. She is from South America and speaks little English. You may not even be aware that through a contribution that you gave Debbie Price, from Lovely You, this patient received a beautiful long dark hair wig and some cotton caps. From the money you gifted Debbie, she graciously gave me 10 additional caps. Debbie has been donating to me for the past 3 years, lightly used wigs or wigs that were donated to her from family members that have lost the battle to this disease.  However, this was a 30 year old who had just lost all her hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes.

And this is only the beginning.  She is receiving chemo before her surgery just to shrink the tumor in hopes that the surgery will be less traumatic. She is here staying with family members but her husband is still in South America. She came to me in tears with her father. Her husband was due here in a week and she wanted to look the best she could for him. When I showed her what I had, nothing caught her eye. She went home with nothing and I simply prayed for a divine intervention! This came to me via Debbie with help from your boutique fundraiser. 

When she came to see me a few days later, I gave her the box with a long, hip, dark brown, straight haired wig. Both she and her father were so happy.

The fact is, at my hospital, many patients are under insured or not insured at all. Many of them don’t even ask for things like this that many take for granted. But it is angels like you and Debbie that appear when life has handed another human being this devastating cross to bear. 

Again thanks for your act of Kindness!!"

FSN is new. We are making things up as we go along, to the best of our ability. While we have had some unbelievably successful events, not every event is a blockbuster … sometimes things like weather, time of year, etc., keep people home. And sometimes, the results have been a bit less than what we had hoped for. This is particularly devastating when we are working to raise money for people who have been dealt especially cruel blows from life … like a cancer diagnosis, or an accident that forever changes the life of a child.

But … we keep going. With our focus on that long-term vision we  share, we just keep going.

And the letters of thanks we receive …? They aren't necessary, or even something we ever imagined we'd receive ...

They're just unexpected, glittering jewels we occasionally find strewn across our path, making it easier to keep moving forward ... more determined than ever.

And we are thankful for them.