Many people have come and gone over the past decade - friends, relatives, strangers. Children. Parents. Pets. When specifically referring to Daily Kos - the "Great Orange Satan" - the same is also true.
Many people found this place while looking for an opportunity to understand and engage others. Some were directed here, some stumbled across. There's been turnover as people who had been around depart while others find it for the first time and decide to hang around a while.
This is place where quite a few things have started, or grown.
With regard to writing about my caregiving journey as I looked after my mother-in-law, this is where it started. And not long after she passed, the bulk of what I wrote here - combined with writings elsewhere, and pieces from Shadan7 and our wives - turned into Her Final Year: A Care-Giving Memoir and His First Year: A Journey of Recovery. Or Her Final Year in shorthand.1
So many people shared their own caregiving experiences...so many people are, or have been, or soon will be, in a caregiving role. Or in the position of requiring a caregiver.
We have Community Quilts, Kosability, Caregiving Kos, Treeclimbers...lots of people, sharing the pains, the costs and the joys of caregiving.
Because that's what makes this a community. A powerful community, focused on positive & progressive change. A community that remembers what it is to be human, and the humanity of caring.
So - although this is somewhat self-serving and self-promoting - I want to let folks know that the Kindle edition of Her Final Year will be available for free for 5 days starting on July 1 (i.e., through July 5), and after that it will be available at the reduced price of $3.01.
If you want to grab a free copy for yourself or a friend, even if you don't have a Kindle, here's your chance.
Please feel free, and please share it widely.
It has 18 five-star reviews on Amazon. Everyone who's read it and left a review was profoundly touched by it.
Their reaction wasn't unexpected. This community showed us that what we were sharing, and what we were experiencing - and the fact that we were sharing it - made a huge difference.
So for this, I will take the liberty of speaking for us all in saying "Thank you."
And namaste.
For more information about the free Kindle edition and the price change, see Shadan7's blog.
1 The caregiving tales also included and spawned The Woo Tales, among other things, and introduced folks to my mother-in-law "Mumsie" as well as our fur kids...