Gratitude and $22,000! FUNdraiser results & saying thank you.

Gratitude and $22,000!  That’s what together you raised during the FUNdraiser on 11/15/14 and surrounding month to help pay back some my breast cancer costs.  Thank YOU is only the beginning of what I could say and how I feel.   I was (and still am) so overwhelmed by the support, love, generosity that, perhaps the first time in my life, I’ve had to put some of my emotions into boxes as I could not process them all at once.  The photo below caught the moment when that happened during the special appeal part of the auction.  Nearly 200 people came out and my heart simply got too full and could hold no more.  I didn’t know that could happen.  What an unusual situation to have so much goodwill coming in at one time.  I’ve never experienced anything like that before.  I could only watch, from a distance outside of myself, and try to hug you if I could that night.  I am now beginning the process of writing thank you notes and emails one at a time.   I’m realizing that each little box of emotion I set aside holds what I feel about each of you who has been there for me, in one way or another, this past year and a half.  I open the little box with your name on it and look inside to find a world of feelings for you and acknowledge what you contributed, in the special ways you could, with the gifts that are your own.  This is truly an amazing process for me.  To take the time each day, as I can emotionally handle it, to acknowledge you within myself by simply sitting with what you mean.   Certainly, your notes and emails may come late at this rate.  I move like a slug right now, enjoying my slow journey.   And an apology to those I will miss completely as so much of my time was foggy during chemo, 5 surgeries & the chronic migraine.  I simply don’t remember all of the things you did and all of the people who helped.  I do a little meditation in the mornings and thank all of the ones I don’t remember.   So for now I  just try to sit with my tiny boxes each day, with the names of those who were written down scrolled across the top, and open them up as little jewels I can take out and shine in the window light to appreciate fully, as I let it sink in, just what a difference your piece has made in my world.  Photos by Paige Stoyer and Diego Diaz