The creak of the stairs woke me as footfalls crept up or down, and I thought how unfair the match-up was. One team was clearly out of the other’s league. When I realized I was contemplating a dream and could dismiss trying to make sense of the disparity, I reached over for my iPhone, which usually charges overnight on my bedside nightstand. The phone wasn’t there. I’d forgotten to bring it upstairs last night, which meant the battery would be nearing empty by now.
I opted for an early morning cup of coffee to bring back up and welcome the sunrise from the darkness of my room, relishing the extra hour this new school year’s schedule allowed me. There on the kitchen counter lay my iPhone. I clicked it on to see one percent battery power remaining and a series of Twitter notifications from overnight mentions.
The one that stopped me in my tracks came from someone named Mike. I don’t know Mike but had bumped into him after a conversation on July 4 about calling it what it is—Independence Day—rather than the generic Fourth of July. He went on that day to say he enjoyed my Tweets and my parenting style, unlike the mom he never had.
I assumed he’d lost his mother early, but he assured me that he still has a mom, but she had been more the “friend” kind rather than the mentoring type. That was the take-away he garnered from reading my Tweets—a “blessing” my kids would surely argue, but you often don’t know what you have until it’s gone. [Insert song here: They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot]
Though Mike is a grown man with a wife, I assume still a young man, the thought that my simple, nonsensical Tweets could somehow bring him comfort made my heart smile.
So here I stood this morning in my kitchen holding my nearly drained iPhone and saw two notifications from Mike that had arrived seven hours earlier, somewhere around midnight last night.
Here’s what they said:
1) I’m worried about an exam I’m taking tomorrow morning in FL. Please think about me and wish me luck, I’m going to need it.
2) its at 7am so you may not hear back from me until lunch. I know you’ll be thinking and thank you in advance. ImGonnaPass
I read his Tweet just 15 minutes before seven and sent him this reply:
Good morning. It’s a fresh new day, one for you to go show the world what you know. Settle in & do your best. Praying for you.
Wow. Somewhere in Florida this young man under stress reached to me. I don’t know where, what kind of exam, any of that. It doesn’t matter. But assuredly he knows that somewhere in this universe someone else would be thinking of him, sending him good vibes, praying, and wishing him well.
Mike wanted the comfort of having someone else thinking of him, but what he may not have realized is that by merely asking me to be that person, I was immeasurably blessed. Though there is power in the prayer, I was equally blessed by the ask. And that made my heart smile again.