I just checked Facebook a few days ago for the first time since surgery, and was really deeply touched by the responses from my old friends. I had waited to post anything about the brain tumor until just before surgery because I wasn’t really going to have a lot of time to communicate about it in advance (preparing for something like this takes an immense amount of time-consuming paperwork and medical testing, and I didn’t want people to feel left out if I was unable to respond to them individually in a reasonable amount of time); but I did want to let everyone know what was happening in case it didn’t go super-well.
I’m not one of those people who has a lot of acquaintances on Facebook. I basically only have someone on Facebook if I actually care about them and consider them a valued friend. Still, I haven’t seen many of these friends in years or even decades – these are people who I will always love because their awesomeness inspired me and helped build my life meaningfully during our time together (either recently or long ago). I didn’t necessarily expect them to remember me, though, as I had remembered them. Everyone’s great influences and heroes are different, and that’s what makes life interesting, right?
So, back from surgery and reading again, I was astounded to hear from so many of my great heroes and kind friends in response to that pre-surgery post. My old friends from MPR, from Fairfield, and so many others who have been a profound part of some of my happiest memories sent their best wishes. This meant more to me than I have words to describe.
If you have contacted me on Facebook or here in the comments, please know that your kind thoughts mean everything to me. Thank you so much.