Tuesday, December 22, 2009

How The Swash Zone Saved Christmas

Ramona came home today, two days before the doctors originally planned. She's happy and exhausted and getting used to the new "boot" on her leg that replaced the cast this morning. But the best part, the part I need to share with all of you here at THE SWASH ZONE, is that I got to tell her what I found when I checked my PayPal account Sunday night.

Ramona was agape. That complete strangers would reach through the intertubes and lend so much help was...well, it was incomprehensible to her. She doesn't have an internet connection and has never "surfed." Times are hard, and who is she to think the world might return even a tiny portion of what she has earned in sacrifices through the years? Karma is foreign to her Baptist upbringing; goodness was its own reward.

But here was a group of nearly two dozen strangers saving Christmas, and I do not exaggerate.

One of the great ironies of the accident that nearly killed her was that her family was required to recover several unwrapped Christmas presents from the car. She had come to the sad conclusion she would need to return the gifts they had already seen and held -- an even harder task, given they were bought in Chicago. Her mind was running out of things to liquidate and she was trying very hard not to let despair win when suddenly...Christmas was saved.

But by whom? Who were these virtual Santas, she wondered? It just did not calculate. I explained twice, and though she was lucid and used to her medication by now I still don't think she could fully comprehend it.

I have a list of email addresses to give her. Everyone that helped can expect a thank-you note as soon as her wrist is well enough to write one. The denizens of the Zone saved Christmas, and you will never know how deep that joy has reached.

You're all heroes tonight. I love each and every one of you -- God bless and keep you all.

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