not alone

when i was nine, put to bed in the summer just as it was getting dark, i remember lying there with the windows open, hearing the trains and the trucks on the highway miles away over the cicadas and whip-poor-wills, and how lonely those sounds were. and i would listen to my little brand-new-for-my-birthday pink transister a.m. radio under my pillow, and i could hear the stations from so far away, the ones you could only hear at night. i could hear all those things but no one could hear me. 

it's a strange thing, the internet. because people can hear you. i received a kind and supportive comment from someone i have never met, wishing me luck with my chemo.

i don't know who she is. all i know is she is in colorado and she is facing a double mastectomy next week. i can't bring her food, and i don't even have an email address.

so i want her to know that i'm thinking of her. i'm hoping she has lots of good support already. but if she hasn't asked her friends to help yet, she needs to. and that if she has been too busy with babies or work or whatever to build that that friend network, she should ask her neighbors and her co-workers; they'll help too and become that network. 

i want her to know she is not alone, and i can hear her.