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| Click to enlarge picture and faith in humanity |
Blogging will
continue to be light in the near future, but it is Christmas and I wanted to
share with you an update of a story that touched more than a few readers. As I told you in my last
post, Addie Fausett is a little girl who is dying. She had an undiagnosed illness that was
keeping her from growing, and doctors told her in November she probably only
had a year to live. And so her family
wanted people to send her a “lifetime” of Christmas cards, this year, and you
delivered. Via People:
6-Year-Old Girl with Terminal Illness Gets
Half a Million Christmas Cards
In
the rural town of Fountain Green, Utah, pop. 1,078, the post office on State
Street is overflowing with cards, letters and gifts for 6-year-old Addie
Fausett, whose Christmas wish is to know that she has friends.
Addie,
who stopped growing when she was 3 due to a mysterious and still undiagnosed
illness, isn't expected to live much beyond another year.
She
can't play with anyone besides her two older sisters, because her condition
occasionally causes her to lash out with uncontrollable scratching and biting.
"One
of her symptoms is cerebral atrophy," the progressive loss of brain cells
over time," Tami Fausett, 29, Addie's mother, tells PEOPLE.
"For
the past year and a half, her behavior has been so unpredictable that she can't
play with other kids or have friends. It's been really hard on everyone, not to
mention heartbreaking."
Hoping
to boost Addie's spirits as she celebrates what is expected to be her last
Christmas, her family started a Facebook campaign, asking for people to send
Christmas cards to hang in Addie's room.
"My
mom came up with the idea," Tami says. "She said, 'If everyone writes
her a card, we can tell Addie these are her friends.' So that's what we've
done. We just never dreamed we'd get such an enormous response."
Since
Thanksgiving, about 3,000 cards have been opened and hung on the wall by Addie
and her sisters, Shayley, 10, and Audree, 7. There an estimated half-million
unopened letters still sitting in postal bags.
"We
have hundreds of thousands more still to open," says Tami. "They're
coming from all over the country, plus Saudi Arabia, Germany, Canada and all
points in between.
"It's
overwhelming. On one day alone, 100,000 came in. It won't be long before we run
out of space, but that's OK. It's fun to see Addie so happy."...
"It's
been touching to get so many cards from complete strangers who care," she
says.
"If
you could see Addie's face when she opens them – she loves seeing the pictures
other kids draw for her, and she loves to watch her sisters hang each new card
on the wall.
"It's
like Christmas every day. When Addie's gone, that's a memory we'll always
cherish."
 |
| Addie also got a lot of stuffed animals from strangers... |
So half a
million? I’m taking credit for that,
right there.
Well, no, I doubt
I am the only person on various forms of social media and blogs to have done something
like that. I am willing to bet it was
viral, just one person after another telling their friends and family, “hey, we
should do this.” One thing I have been
impressed by recently is the power of the grassroots to spread good in the
world, whether it is something like #EveryoneMakeFunOfKimJongUnDay,
or this, I love seeing thousands upon thousands of people saying, “let me step
up and do something.” And indeed
according to this AP
report, the local post office needed help from other post offices in the
area to sort it all (meaning presumably to make sure everyone else gets their mail,
too).
And as for
Addie, it
got even better:
Fountain Green holds first Christmas light
parade for terminally ill girl
FOUNTAIN
GREEN, Sanpete County — With Old Glory leading the way, hundreds of people
crowded onto Main Street Tuesday night for Fountain Green's first Christmas
light parade, organized especially for little Addie Fausett.
The
6-year-old girl with a terminal brain disease enjoyed the festivities with her
mother and sisters — the culmination of a month of love, showered on her
family, that has touched everyone in the community.
"I
think it has changed the way people think about Christmas in this little town,”
said resident Nathan Beck.
Beck
and his family made two floats for the parade. “It has kind of restored my
faith in humanity, to see so many people pull together with this tiny little
girl and this tiny little town,” Beck said.
While
their floats are nothing fancy, they were made with tender loving care.
“I
just worked with what I had, bought a few lights made a little float for her,
put her name on it,” said resident Jerry Beck. “We love her.”
As
the special guest of honor, Addie watched the parade in front of the post
office, where over the past month, nearly 300,000 Christmas cards, letters and
even gifts have arrived for her from places near and far. The community has
stepped in to help open them all.
 |
| From the parade |
Oh, and as if
you haven’t been uplifted enough already:
The
majority of the toys have been shared with local charities to help other
families in need this Christmas.
Stop to think
about that. They probably got way more
gifts than they would need, but they didn’t have to give it away. They could have probably gone to various
stores and returned them for cash, sometimes, or store credit. But instead they said, “hey, there are other people in need, let’s give it to
them.”
All of this is
surely bittersweet to the Fausett family.
They are saying farewell to Addie, after all. Once when standing beside the graves of four
children who suffered unjustly, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “God
still has a way of wringing good out of evil.”
If you ever doubt that, look at the Christmas miracle that good people like
you made happen this year. This was not
only good for that little girl, this was good for the souls of all of all of
you that sent cards and gifts. This day is
about love. It is about giving, more
than getting, and we were all made richer for what we gave to Addie Fausett and
her family.
So have a
Merry Christmas. You’ve earned it.
---------------------------------------
P.S.: You owe
it to yourself to click on all the links and read. There is more stories from that family’s joy
and more pictures to make you smile.
---------------------------------------
My wife and I
have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist (and
adjudicated pedophile) Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed
and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years. I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you
read starting here,
you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video
evidence. If you would like to help in
the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable, please hit the donation link on
the right. And thank you.
Follow me at
Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for
snark and site updates. And you can
purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A
Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.
And you can read a little more about my
novel, here.
---------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
I have accused
some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct. In some cases, the conduct is even
criminal. In all cases, the only justice
I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice
system. I do not want to see vigilante
violence against any person or any threat of such violence. This kind of conduct is not only morally
wrong, but it is counter-productive.
In the
particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him. Do not call him. Do not write him a letter. Do not write him an email. Do not text-message him. Do not engage in any kind of directed communication. I say this in part because under Maryland
law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.
And for that
matter, don’t go on his property. Don’t
sneak around and try to photograph him.
Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision. Your behavior could quickly cross the line
into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).
And do not
contact his organizations, either. And
most of all, leave his family alone.
The only
exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course
nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any
stories you might report. And even then
if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request. That this is a key element in making out a
harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you
refuse.
And let me say
something else. In my heart of hearts, I
don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above. But if any of you have, stop it, and if you
haven’t don’t start.
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