A few weeks ago I wrote a post about my blue-and-brass charm bracelet I made for 7,000 Bracelets of Hope, a project that's collecting blue bracelets for families living with rare diseases. I really enjoyed making that bracelet. I love the color blue and had a terrific time choosing the beads and making wrapped-link dangles. I wrote a little note, stuffed it inside the package, and sent it off. End of story.
Except it wasn't.
Late Tuesday I opened my email to find an email from a stranger. Now, I get a significant amount of email from strangers, usually blog readers, shop owners, bead makers, or editors, all of whom require some kind of thoughtful response.
I hesitated. It was after 5 p.m. I'm trying to reign in my hours as a freelancer. I reminded myself that evenings are for relaxing. Didn't I want a better work-life balance?
I clicked on it.
It wasn't an email from a reader. It wasn't spam. It was an email from the woman named Heather in the Midwest who had received my bracelet. A woman whose youngest son Ian has Russell-Silver Syndrome. A woman who cried when she put on the bracelet I had made, telling me that she felt a positive surge of energy she hadn't felt in 6 months.
Wow.
The concept of something like rare diseases in children is hard to grasp if you're like me and the children you know are generally healthy. Plus, charities can seem abstract, all numbers and pie charts and research studies. It's not that you don't care. You do. But doing something very small—like making a bracelet—often doesn't seem much better than doing nothing.Heather's gracious email (and her blog post) reminded me that it is always better to take that small step. It may feel like you're throwing grains of sand into the ocean, making no lasting impression at all. That's not true. It's just that most days you never get to hear the rest of the story.