Her Name is Donna

Her Name is Donna

There are people God interrupts your life with that when you think of them you smile.

Donna is her name.

I met her in the 90’s covering a story about something that had happened to her. A great tragedy she overcame.

She’s probably the strongest woman I have ever met.

Her story is for her to share not me so we’ll just leave that topic hanging for now.

Before social media our contact was limited.

She was putting her life back together and I was doing whatever it is I do.

We’d have the occasional conversation but didn’t really talk a lot.

A few years ago, she turned up on a social media live I was doing and the two of us told her story to my audience.

It was a powerful moment but mostly it was a chance for us to reconnect and now some of her family also follow me.

Donna makes jams, jellies, salsa and now liquor.

She mails me stuff a lot and each time Kathy and I get a box it’s like Christmas.

Those packages are little love notes, exclamation marks on two lives that intersected long ago and whose connection, I think, is ordained by God Himself.

I was reading something about how lace used to be made in rooms that were dark with only a pinpoint light focused on the actual spot where the lace was patterned into something beautiful. I think our lives are like that as well.

We look for the fully lighted room when in fact most of the time darkness and that little light is all we need.

When I get a package from Donna, it’s like that little light reminding me what I’ve sewn in the past is good. And while I don’t see as much of that today, what I’m doing still matters. When you get into your 60’s you wonder sometimes.

I hope everyone has a Donna. You know, someone from the past who is tougher than nails but tender hearted and see’s who we really are.