April 14, 2023 — It’s been another very trying week for our nation, so what if we all do our best to create a weekend that soothes our spirits. I know I’m ready for a good cry.
Yesterday I read an excerpt from the book How to Build a Life that really hit home. “Crying can be a powerful tool to tame our feelings,” author Arthur Brooks wrote, “to maintain a deep equanimity in our emotional life. It can bring balance, peace, and just maybe, even a touch of the divine.”
Seeing a tearful Kentucky governor expressing his loss of a dear friend in the Louisville bank shooting made me think of this powerful card inspired by Cardie Paige Baker. I share powerful Paige stories often because — in our caring community of kindred spirits — she’s exceptionally engaged and giving. A pro at honoring emotions, Paige shares her joys and challenges with an open heart, grace, and eloquence … which is how I came to know she lost two very dear friends in as many years.
“Dear Jodee,” she wrote in October of 2021. “Two weeks ago my beautiful friend Beth died of mean, mean pancreatic cancer. I am not being a nice person at all right now because I am so mad at cancer … and fate … and anything else I can blame because it was just so unfair. She was 58! So wrong on every level.
“I wanted you to know that Beth’s sweet husband called just now to say thank you for the cards over the last year. Tim said it always lifted her heart when my cards arrived. Near the end, I sent a card every other day. Tim said he would reach in the mailbox and there would be a sage green envelope and he knew it was from me. And because it would make her happy, he would read the cards aloud. He said, ‘That way, though you sent them to Beth, it felt like you also sent them to me.’”
Paige and her amazing gift for making and keeping close friends inspired me to stop and consider that — when we lose our nearest and dearest — the focus is naturally on the love we had for them. What gets us through, though, has to be our willingness to still feel all the warmth and love, admiration and appreciation they had for us.
That is my wish for Paige, for Governor Beshear, for you, and for every person who will receive this grace-filled card: At the same time we’re feeling love for a person we’ve lost, may we also be able to sit and sense all the love and tenderness they felt for us, too.
This weekend, let’s all make a point of taking care of ourselves as well as each other.
Jodee Stevens
Founder & Chief Creative
April 14, 2023 — It’s been another very trying week for our nation, so what if we all do our best to create a weekend that soothes our spirits. I know I’m ready for a good cry.
Yesterday I read an excerpt from the book How to Build a Life that really hit home. “Crying can be a powerful tool to tame our feelings,” author Arthur Brooks wrote, “to maintain a deep equanimity in our emotional life. It can bring balance, peace, and just maybe, even a touch of the divine.”
Seeing a tearful Kentucky governor expressing his loss of a dear friend in the Louisville bank shooting made me think of this powerful card inspired by Cardie Paige Baker. I share powerful Paige stories often because — in our caring community of kindred spirits — she’s exceptionally engaged and giving. A pro at honoring emotions, Paige shares her joys and challenges with an open heart, grace, and eloquence … which is how I came to know she lost two very dear friends in as many years.
“Dear Jodee,” she wrote in October of 2021. “Two weeks ago my beautiful friend Beth died of mean, mean pancreatic cancer. I am not being a nice person at all right now because I am so mad at cancer … and fate … and anything else I can blame because it was just so unfair. She was 58! So wrong on every level.
“I wanted you to know that Beth’s sweet husband called just now to say thank you for the cards over the last year. Tim said it always lifted her heart when my cards arrived. Near the end, I sent a card every other day. Tim said he would reach in the mailbox and there would be a sage green envelope and he knew it was from me. And because it would make her happy, he would read the cards aloud. He said, ‘That way, though you sent them to Beth, it felt like you also sent them to me.’”
Paige and her amazing gift for making and keeping close friends inspired me to stop and consider that — when we lose our nearest and dearest — the focus is naturally on the love we had for them. What gets us through, though, has to be our willingness to still feel all the warmth and love, admiration and appreciation they had for us.
That is my wish for Paige, for Governor Beshear, for you, and for every person who will receive this grace-filled card: At the same time we’re feeling love for a person we’ve lost, may we also be able to sit and sense all the love and tenderness they felt for us, too.
This weekend, let’s all make a point of taking care of ourselves as well as each other.
Jodee Stevens
Founder & Chief Creative
Thank you for sharing. These cards are so unique and so special and I was not familiar with the one by Cardie Paige Baker. How beautiful. I always keep a variety of these cards and I am blessed myself when I am able to pick just the perfect one for a certain situation. I agree that we have had so much sadness in our country over the past few weeks but all the more reason to reach out and encourage one another. Thank you for creating a special way to do that.
So beautifully written.
As a retired hospice nurse, for humans and for animals, my experience taught me family and friends get depleted telling “ the story” over and over. Just answering the phone can sometimes be too much.
But a card! In the mailbox! That you can open when you have the strength or the sanity..
A Card! That’s NOT a bill or some other reminder that this journey is physically, emotionally and financially heart breaking.
A Card! That expects nothing in return.. and gives quiet reminders of love, support, memories and validation .
A Card!
Sometimes we can’t find the exact words to express the emotions we feel to someone we love. If I feel something I try to express it right away because it might be the exact moment that the other person needs to hear it. The line from the song “What the world needs now, is love” is what cardthartic helps us do. Spread LOVE always.
Once again Jodee, I am moved to tears just reading this and remembering Beth and the gift her husband gave to me when he described how moved they were by the “little sage green envelopes in the mailbox.” The visual of that simple act of mailing a card going right to the heart of someone else is so powerful. I don’t know how you come to write the very words I would write . . . if I could — but I am grateful every time.
Sometimes I feel a little macabre stocking up on Cardthartic sympathy cards. It must be at this stage of life that I reach for just the right one on a regular basis. Recently our dentist’s father died & in reading his obituary, I knew the card with gentlemen on the cover saying “one of the good guys” was perfect. His obit said to eat a few cookies in his honor & have ice cream (at least 3scoops). This was a man after my own heart.
When you hurt so much and your heart feels heavy, Cardthartic Cards lighten the load. No long, overdone message that is hard to connect with. Acknowledgement that your pain (or joy—-most aren’t heavy sentiments) and you are seen and cared about. Something you can pick up and read no matter where you are or what time of day it is.
Is it possible to receive these by Aug 22nd?