* Dear Gregory:

I am so very pleased to read from you! It was only a few days ago that I thought about you and your family when hearing news about South Sudan. Thank you for posting again and I appreciate your kindness over the years.

I am pleased that you found interest in Lisa’s thread, in her life’s journey. We’ll read from her again when she is able and willing to post again (.. and again), I hope.

Thank you so much for your support in the post you submitted for me back on July 7, 2023. At the time, I read and re-read your post and cried as I read it. it meant a lot to me. Here’s what I liked reading so much: you called me a “superb person with strong personality“, “A mother“, you expressed empathy for me, and you were the first (and maybe only) person who asked me to return to the forums (“Kindly come back to Tiny buddha anytime you are willing to!“). You asking me to return was a strong reason for my return. I left you a message on that thread very soon after I returned to the forums (Aug 30, 2023).

I was impressed by what you wrote back then about what you consider to be good/ honest people: people who are “interested in a mutually enriching relationship“, people who create real, genuine intimacy (not “pseudo intimacy to make you feel comfortable and to trust them… pretend to like the same things you like… to make you feel connected“), people who reveal different sides of their lives, not “only one side of their life“, people who acknowledge the truth and invite others to speak their truth (not those “gaslighting you into silence“).

As I read the above this morning, I see that I need to further cut down on my people-pleasing behaviors in real-life so to avoid pseudo intimacy (which is what I offer when I present a pseudo me), and I want to be a good person in all the ways you described above

This is perhaps the nicest thing you wrote to me back then: “Nothing can dim the light that shines from within. You have changed the lives of so many people around the globe. Example: myself“- if I changed something significant in a single person’s life, that’s good enough for me. Thank you so much for writing this, Gregory!

Back to Lisa and her choice of the title of this thread, Choosing Love: may each one of us, do our best to choose love, peace and justice for all.

anita