Successes with Sharing

So far, sharing has gone really well for me. I haven't completed all my sharing at this point, but I am working through each experience trying to make it meaningful.

My focus with sharing my own essay was to share it with people that would understand it the best, who either went through my experience with me or saw me through it. I shared my essay with the best friend that held my hand during the funeral. I was really nervous to do this because I had tried to talk to him in the past about Jared's death, but he just wasn't ready to talk about it. It has now been 1 1/2 years since Jared's passing, so I was hoping that talking about it now would be a good experience, and it was! I sent the essay over a Facebook message to this friend and got a very positive response from it. I felt like it was really appreciated and helped with some healing my friend is still dealing with.

I also shared it with a teacher I am fairly close to and who knew Jared very well. She was happy to see me portraying Jared in such a positive light and trying to teach others to learn from his life.

I did share a few other's essays in various places. I read Hailey's essay to my brother, who loves video games, and he got quite the kick out of it! I also just generally shared Hailey's essay on Facebook because I am friends with lots of mothers who I think need to better understand how loved they are, especially for their quirks! I have gotten three likes on the post so far.

I sent my sisters Emily's essay because they are both applying for college right now and could use the encouragement. One of them responded saying that she is motivated to keep on trying no matter what happens in her future and that Emily's essay gave her hope.

I am going to continue sharing in different ways and am excited to see what kind of reactions I will receive from others!