Inspiring

I have received quite a few stories from people about how my mom touched their lives. The story below I think optimizes what I'd love to see the world do. Everyone helping everyone even just a little bit. Sometimes the smallest action on one person's part in collaboration with many others can have a profound effect on one persons life. I think of this as a stunning example and makes me so proud. It makes me want to be better at helping others. Just think of what a strangers smile or compliment does for you. Or a friends continual emotional support. This story really just opened up my chest.

Hi Jenna -

I'm glad that you were able to hack into your mom's email to get these address. This is the first I have heard of her passing. Although I don't know you - I am sending good thoughts your way as you settle into this new phase of your life and prepare for your travels. Thanks for sharing this update, and for the blog link with the attached video. I look forward to following your journey, and to helping support in whatever little way I can.

I never actually met your mother in person, so it was beautiful to see the video and learn more about her. Your mom and I got in contact in 2004, when I was in my early 20s. I am a lesbian who grew up in an abusive home, ran away to San Francisco when I was a teen, worked my way through college while mostly being homeless - and somehow during that time got appointed to public office and did a lot of social justice political work. Harvard learned about my story and recruited me to attend grad school there to get my masters in public policy. In 2004, I was thrilled and terrified that Harvard wanted me - but also facing the harsh realization that even getting into Harvard doesn't mean things were instantly okay. I was still just barely out of a homeless shelter, and had no family beyond the extended community that had taken me in. I couldn't afford a plane ticket to Boston, let alone even imagine how I would find somewhere to live and buy books, before financial aid kicked in a month after the semester started.

Despite all of that, I was determined to figure it out, as I know that going to Harvard would change my life and the potential and opportunities given to me to make my life of more use in public service. Despite the process being one of the most challenging and embarrassing in my life, I let friends start to fundraise for my expenses by sending emails around to their community - explaining my story and needs.

Somehow one of those emails made it out to your mother. (I'm still not sure how it got to her.) And she contacted me and sent a donation from her and a friend to help me get to school.

I truly always have been raised by a vast village community, and feel like my life's possibilities and responsibilities are intricately linked with the wonderful people who have supported me along the way. I always counted your mother as a treasured member of that long distance web, although we were never able to work out meeting up in person.

Your mom and I stayed in email contact through my grad school years and for a few years after that, as I moved to NYC and started the new phase of my career. She would write about her retirement and her move and how, when she was in Delaware, she wished she was closer to where you were.

My email history shows that we fell out of contact in 2008. I moved around a lot, and worked on the Obama campaign at the time, and fell behind on a lot of correspondence. I regret not continuing to be in contact. But I have always considered your mother a special person who is woven into the fabric of the life and values I have. The people who supported me going from a homeless shelter to Harvard literally changed so much about how I can exist and try to thrive and do good in this world. And I am always grateful that your mother reached out to a young woman she never really knew, and continued to stay in contact after that.

That's a long story, but I wanted to share it with you. Seeing the video about your mom fills out in my mind the story of how incredible of a person she was. And I feel ever more blessed to have had a bit of a path-crossing with her in life. I too was raised a bit in the Native American culture, so I will light a candle and burn some sage for your mother today.

Thanks for including me on this email, and all strong and good thoughts are being sent out your way.