In the late-1990s, I spent a lot of time worrying about dying.  A pulmonologist had predicted that my lungs would soon fail from exhaustion.  My breathing grew labored and ragged; my skin eternally pale and dry; my movements stilted and slow.  Death seemed to lurk around the corner, leering, jeering, waiting to pounce.

During that time, Yahoo chat rooms provided a place for people to meet others and endlessly converse in rapidly scrolling sequences.  Since sleep eluded me, I found my way to such chat rooms.  There, I adopted the nom de plume which I still sometimes use, the Lady Gardenia.  I also discovered ICQ, a real-time, split-screen messaging system.  In a Yahoo chatroom, I met Dennis Lisenby whom I later married and with whom I remain close, despite our divorce after ten years of marriage.  I also met Dave (“don’t call me ‘David’ “) Littlehales, a computer wonk and musician in England with whom I still remain friends as well.  Dave once visited my household, and routinely trounces me in Words With Friends.

My story unfolded quite differently than the doctor’s prognosis.  I proved to be one tough cookie (read about it here).  Those nights at the keyboard in my breakfast nook, the bi-fold doors closed to keep the light from waking my son, now seem like part of a hazy, half-remembered dream.  I  know they  happened; and i vividly recall telling Dave Littlehales to keep typing, keep talking; I feared sleep because I might not waken and my young child would find my dead body and be forever alone, forever scarred.  He typed far into his day, six hours ahead of me, getting me through to sunrise in Kansas City.

One Christmas, Dave sent me a beautiful cloisonne brooch.  It came wrapped in tissue, inside an envelope, in a little packet.  I still have it; still wear it; and still consider it one of the sweetest gifts anyone has ever sent — because it came with no strings attached, tendered without any sense of obligation on the part of the giver.

I find myself at the brink of 2015, which I entered, smiling, having received several texts and messages from 11:00 p.m. far into the morning, from people around the country.  Like Dave, they reached out purely from the desire to do so, with no hint that their greetings had been prompted from any sense of duty.  That purity of spirit gives me hope for this new year.  When a woman has so many people in her life who will take time from whatever occupies them to send greetings, how can that woman not look upon the new year with hope, and joy, and eagerness?

My brooch from Dave Littlehales.