Soulspiration: People

There are so many inspirational facets of my life: people, places, things. I come across ideas, quotes, songs, photographs, nature, and stories that fill my heart with an itch to learn more. I would love to share some of these with you, so please excuse my long and various lists of these special people, my soulspirations:

People:
I have to say that the blog journey of CFHusband was probably one of the major influences of me beginning The Boitsons blog and then transferring it into Crazywidow.info. The story of Nathan, Tricia (who has CF) and Gwyneth is nothing short of miraculous. I joined their journey just after Tricia had given birth to Gwyneth, a preemie, and soon after had the blessing of a lung transplant due to her Cystic Fibrosis taking a severe toll on her lungs. I would check in daily on the progress, and even wrote an article on them.


Fresh Widow
is a woman who writes a blog about widowhood, one of the first I encountered. I found her on twitter, and we quickly connected. She even inspired me to write my article on the U.S. Healthcare Debate, when she collected several blogs from widows on the healthcare matter; one that is very personal to many widows. The article ended up winning ‘Content of the Year’, and I owe a huge THANKS to this wonderful, honest, inspirational woman who gave me the push and guts to put my views in writing.

The next seven people all sort of go hand in hand thanks to, well, Twitter. Ken Mueller, of Inkling Media is essentially the “Mayor” of the Lancaster twitter crowd. He keeps the kids in line, he promotes area business relations, he smooths the crowds over, and he takes a good verbal beating. Ken was the first person to give me a guest post spot. Thanks to my fabulous cousin Christine, who introduced me to him at a downtown block party, and to twitter. He opened up my world to many other people who have since then, become GREAT inspiration to me:

Stephanie Gehman, who does the marketing and social media for Harrisburg International Airport (HIA) and who asked me to guest post on the Lady Travel Talk Series which really began my drive to pursue more travel writing. Since that article, I have now had the great opportunity to do travel writing for VisitPA.com and in a few weeks, Visit Pittsburgh!

Shawn Smucker, a local writer, who is hosting the Fireside Writer’s Conference in Gap, who featured my widow story on his blog, and who after a bit of discussion and arm twisting, agreed to give me a chance to speak about grief at the upcoming Fireside Writer’s Conference in Gap, Pa, along side of Anne Beiler (of Auntie Anne’s) and Tim Kreider of Also-Me to do a panel discussion on “The Art in Tragedy”. Am I psyched? YES. Thank you Shawn!

Kirsten & Jason Deeds. Literallly, I could just put their names down and feel inspired, teary eyed, blessed. Transplants from California, this amazing (I wish I had a more powerful word to describe them) couple now reside here in Lancaster, and are parents to three lovely children, two adopted, one by birth, but all they carry in their hearts. I won’t go into the details of their story, read for yourself, but wow wow wow. Every minute I spend with them I feel more blessed in my own life, and continually inspired by theirs. I love you both.

Sara, oh my dear Sara. Sara is this little spitfire who resides in my former hometown by way of Ohio (I think!) and is mom to two adorable children, wife to a great uber-geek (hehe) and a super passionate woman of Jewish faith. I would term her the ultimate hippie. I love her. She inspires me to no end with her drive towards being more friendly to the earth, for giving her children the best life possible in the most simplistic manner, for choosing the Jewish faith and running strong with it in a way I have not seen in anyone in quite a long time, and in just being an intriquitely brilliant woman. Read, read, read.

All these people, and more not listed, have given me so many amazing opportunities. They have believed in me and given me hope and desire in unfathomable ways. They have driven me to pursue my love of writing, to share my story with the masses, and to drive forward in search of happiness in a second life. Thank you, thank you all.

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Comments 4

  1. Brenda, what a heartfelt post, your inner (and outer) beauty always shines through in your writing. Thank you for including me in this post, I am humbled.

  2. *hugs*

    Thank you so much. Your writing inspires me as well. I find myself reading your blog posts with a note pad by my side, because I always come away with so much to write about myself. With me covering birth and parenting and you often covering death and grief, our topics have so much more in common than I’d ever realized.

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