Amanda writes back

Today, I felt the power of the internet. In a good way.

Some of you read my post not long ago called “Letter to Amanda Fowler.” I wrote about a picture of a girl who touched me. A girl who, more or less, is anonymous to the rest of the world. I wrote about Amanda Fowler.

Anyone who knows me knows I have mad google skills so after I wrote that post, I wondered what might have become of Amanda. I googled and searched and googled and read. I tried every possible combination of search terms to help me narrow things down. I checked dates to see if one Amanda or another could be her.

It took me a while but I found her. I want her to keep her privacy and anonymity so I won’t tell you how I found her. I can tell you that she is 5 years older, engaged to be married, and has a little girl of her own. She hangs out with her friends. She works full time. Life has moved on for her.

I wanted to let her know that I had written about her and that I thought she might like to read it. She did and here is what she said:

“That is, in fact, me and thank you so much for your incredibly kind words. They brought tears to my eyes, please continue to pray for the gulf because we truly need it. I just hope that one day our children can enjoy our oceans as we have, I fear that that could one day not be possible. Thank you again for sharing your article with me, it truly made my day.”

We all blog for different reasons. I blog because I love to write about things I see, hear, and feel. Today, knowing that my words had an impact on someone like Amanda, made me feel incredibly fortunate and most importantly, inspired.