The Renee Award

“A friend is one who feels thus and excites these feelings in return: those who think they feel thus towards each other think themselves friends. This being assumed, it follows that your friend is the sort of man who shares your pleasures in what is good and your pain in what is unpleasant, for your sake and for no other reason. This pleasure and pain of his will be the token of his good wishes for you, since we all feel glad at getting what we wished for, pained at getting what we do not. Those, then are friends to whom the same things are good and evil; and those who are moreover, friendly or unfriendly, to the same people; for in that case they must have the same wishes, and thus by wishing for each other what they wish for themselves, they show themselves, each other’s friends.” Aristotle, RHETORIC

I had a rather lengthy essay following my above quote of Aristotle but then there was a power surge. Word recovered my document and as I reread it, it dawned on me that the power surge was such an appropriate message.

The blogs is a strange place. It offers connections unheard of in the past. A blogger may have hundreds of visits and followers, thousands of friends, and hundreds of comments. Then there’s a power failure. The blogger finds herself cut off from those connections, and is in a serious case of withdrawal from the instant discourse.

Except at that very short moment of power failure, as I leaned back on my chair, and longing for solitude that I so love, I found myself thinking of two bloggers who for a short period of time turned my world inside out, upside down and cart wheeling. They are connected in terms of how they came into my life. This blogger, who one day came to visit my blog, left a comment that caught my attention. It was thoughtful, intelligent, gentle and witty. It made me smile. So I tracked her name back to her blog and found myself in a state of excited disbelief. There on her blog are fantastic and beautiful illustrations of children so adorable but the details oozed with wit, creativity and masterful lines. I followed this blogger who turned out to be a brilliant dilettante and an accomplished academe before she decided to focus on rearing her two beautiful daughters. Bella Sinclair blogs with one whose avatar is Alice facing a classroom full of animals. I politely turned away from their blog conversation but found myself turning my head ever so slowly in that exchange characterized by the wittiest, kindest, gentlest and seemingly honest exchange of admiration, caring and yes, love for one another. How possible is that to love someone without a body to embrace, arms to hold and eyes to see? But this blogger, there is nothing in this blogger that restrained her from expressing and sharing love and injecting her zest for life. So I followed her avatar and to my shock and dismay discovered she is fighting a battle against cancer.

There was a long silence and a lot of contemplation. I found myself ill at ease, do I address the cancer? Do I respond to her post about how she wants her funeral to be conducted? Surprisingly the words came flowing out of me so easily.

My days are filled with appointments for meetings, call duties, dinners, dressing up, matching shoes and purses, running after Daisy our family dog. At the very slight disruption of my routine, I complain. I get angry. I express indignation. I read Renee's posts and comments and I burst out laughing, get warmed over, feel cuddled, strengthened, inspired and let my heart go wildly loving, loving my daughter, my son, my husband, my dog, our rabbit and feel horrible that I forgot we had a goldfish, thank God, he is still alive. Life! I cannot be mad at the dust on my desk, wipe it then. Supper is late because I am on call, then have a late supper or skip dinner altogether. I laugh and smile as I always do and after a frenzy of activities I withdraw into a state of satisfied exhaustion. I think of Renee and I am filled with loving energy. One day I wrote this on Renee’s blog:

"There are people, no matter what their station or economic situation in life may be, who strive for the best and even in times of distress, pain and suffering there is a certain regal air, one that inspires great novels and artists. Someday when I die, I want to be remembered as someone who loved deeply, felt intensely, thought keenly, touched tenderly, suffered beautifully, expressed outrageously or otherwise did not give one shit when she chose not to care."

Renee told me I described her to a tee with the above phrase. You can have it Renee and this award too, the one I requested Bella to illustrate because mine looked so sterile, it is in honor of you. Your blog is evidence and your words that have touched so many hearts is the source for this Little Renee, the acorn, a small package becoming a tall and sturdy oak giving more acorns, becoming tall and sturdy oaks, giving acorns…This award goes to you first…

…and since this is a chain award may I please have the honor of linking another chain and give this award to Bella Sinclair too. Gotcha! :)

Renee Award

Blog award given to the blogger who spreads love and truly inspires others...

To Renee

and her favorite

Bella Sinclair

.

The Oaks Of BlogWorld (1)