Day 19

It's funny for me to think that the only Christmas cards I sent out this year were to complete and total strangers. Allow me to explain...

Today I came across this website appropriately named, "Wish Upon A Hero." Through this website you can either make a wish or choose to grant one for someone else. What a fantastic community of individuals who have pledged to help people overcome obstacles, find their silver lining, and resume their faith in mankind.

On this site there is an entire section dedicated solely to sending cards. Immediately I thought that this sounded like a perfect fit to my day. So there I was, before I knew it, standing in the greeting card aisle starring into the streamlined sea of happy birthdays and get wells. In the empty shelves where the Christmas greetings once lived, I scrounged around until I found a small pack of 6 rectangular cards with the simple word of JOY placed on the front in an array of greens and reds. This was perfect. Along with that pack I also managed to pick up a few other birthday cards, seeing as some of the wish requests were actually for birthday cards rather than Christmas cards.

The people who created the wishes created them with very specific concerns in mind. Some were requesting for friends or relatives who have had a rough year. Some were requesting for others who may not make it to another holiday. There were even some who requested cards for themselves as a special gift through their own initiation.

I spent over an hour constructing the most appropriate, cheerful, and individualized messages into each and every card. For some of the cards I had a small paragraph-worth of a background on the recipient, others I didn't even have a name. Working with these things in mind, I tried to imagine the person that I was writing to. I tried very hard to find a true image of them so as to write the words that they could be longing to hear from this stranger. I also tried to picture what each of them would look like as they tore open the envelope from a stranger they were never to know.

Some of the best ways to touch one's life is through a simple gesture. Those cards are essentially colorful, folded pieces of paper. The words are sent from my heart, as best as I could for an unknown soul. The fact of the matter is that what I did today didn't take much out of me. It cost me little money and caused me to expend little effort... but the impact that such little things can have can be GREAT. That is my wish for today.