"Penny's Word"

The list of blogs I have been following has been steadily increasing as I continue to stumble upon other interesting writers. Predictably, my time available to keep up with them all is suffering. I appreciate those of my fellow bloggers who regularly write twice a week or less – I am usually am able to keep up. The daily bloggers, well… that is a bit more difficult. I’ll catch you when I can.

Surprisingly, though, a few blogs have disappeared; yanked from the bloggosphere for reasons unknown. But recently one blog’s disappearance left me very sad.

Penny’s Word was authored by a wife and mother living outside a small town in Australia. She blogged about the everyday things happening in her life but always had a lovely and interesting way in which she revealed her life. Her photographs she took and posted of nature in her area of the world were stunning; the birds particularly. I always shared the bird pictures with my wife, an avid birder herself, and who would give anything to see such colorful species in the wild.

Penny visited my blog and commented as well; her comments were always gracious, thoughtful and welcome. She had just started to learn how to weave and had begun posting about her new skill, what she had learned and made.

Then one day recently this month her daughter posted in her behalf – Penny had been in a serious car accident. She was in the hospital in extremely critical condition having been placed in an induced coma. She was expected to recover but with serious and permanent disabilities. Her husband then posted an update on her condition, acknowledging all who had commented and wished her well. He warned that it would not be likely Penny would be blogging again anytime soon.

I was stunned. Though I’ve never seen her face nor heard her voice, the mind and spirit of this woman had touched me. Now hearing of the tragedy brought upon her left me feeling badly… and helpless.

Her blog is now gone. Clearly, with all the pressing issues her family must now deal with, maintaining a blog is of trivial importance. Still, as I read the blogs of my new followers, I cannot forget Penny, that her blog is missing from the list for very abject reasons. I understand fully why things like this happen and that they happen every day to people we don’t know. But understanding this does nothing to take away the sadness. I can only hope that she recovers and , just maybe, she will speak to us through her blog again.

I find some small semblance of comfort in the words I captured in my documentary about the remarkable Jerry Andrus:

“We’re each a unique mixture of sub-atomic particles. And so the only thing that’s left other than our remains is the effect that we might have had on other people or maybe will have on other people. "