Yay For Friends!

July 24, 2020 — Where would we be without them?! I don’t know about you, but my friends are getting me through. Their insight and advice, support and humor … good and wise friends are our saving grace, for sure.

In our house growing up, Mom hung a little black wrought-iron sign with cheery yellow lettering that read To Have a Friend, Be One. (Hehe, she hung it in a bathroom where she knew her kids would be sure to sit and, perhaps, contemplate.) Cardies have so many friends because you Are one — actively reaching out to make sure the people in your lives know they’re being thought of and valued. What a gift. As Cardie Kevin Schochat wrote in his Share Your Story submission, “More than just dashing off an impersonal email, cards show that you’re willing to share some love and invest some effort!”

Now this could be end-of-story, right here, cut to SHOP FRIENDSHIP CARDS. But, for those of you who love to read, you’re in for a weekend treat …

I first heard from Cardie Judy Cortner in December 2014 and, because I enjoy her quirky and powerful writing so much, I’ve saved many of her emails over these past six years. I thought I’d share excerpts with you here because, to me, Judy exemplifies a great friend — her messages warm your heart and make you laugh! While her writing is often in response to a particular Cardie Newsletter topic, we think her random thoughts are still great to read out-of-context. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, here you have Friend Judy Cortner’s Greatest Hits. I shall now step aside and let this Friend of Cardthartic riff.

Jodee Stevens
Founder & Chief Creative

Dec 31, 2014
Dear Jodee,
After reading today’s Cardie Newsletter, I noticed how “light” I felt in my spirit. I went back into my deleted file (which the computer calls trash) and reread some of your previous newsletters and realized the different emotions I felt — it was wonderful! — and immediately created a folder to keep them for future rereading.

Jul 4, 2017
One of my dearest friends passed to the next place five years ago and her energy is with me forever. I think of her nearly every day. I cry for her some days, and always. I am grateful for the years we were friends — she was magical to me. I do not long for “closure” as that speaks to me of an ending to something, and I never want my memories of her to end.

Sep 4, 2017
Enjoy the fruits of your labors on this Labor Day. I doubt you feel like you labor, since you are bringing your GIFT to the world. Hardly seems like labor, eh? At least that is how I feel. If everyone could and would bring their gifts, it would be a marvelous world!!!!! The longer I live, the more I KNOW this is true.

Jul 20, 2018
Every day I look for a gift and I have not been disappointed yet! It is only 11 am and I have already received my gift for today … I met a 4-year-old in the coffee shop this morning and we had a wonderful conversation. He was frisky 👏😊 I like that in a person 💙😄

Sep 8, 2018
I needed to be reminded today, all people and things are in their place and working toward the good. I have had difficult tear-filled days since watching the Kavanaugh hearings. I think the experiences I do not speak about are all tucked in bed and will never awaken. However, my experiences awoke with a vengeance on Thursday and have been demanding attention since.
When the waves close over me, I dive down, looking for pearls.

Sep 12, 2018
I collect fun words. I discovered a new one this morning: Taradiddle. Is that not fabulous ?!?!?!?
If I had tattoos, I would tattoo that on my wrist where I could see it every day 😋 That may be a lot of taradiddle. Its meaning is “fib” or “pretentious nonsense.” I like pretentious nonsense. 👏

Contributing Cardie Mary Morini (left) and Cardie Judy Cortner have their own Cardie Party in Judy’s hometown at Glady Fay’s Christian Bookstore, a Cardthartic Retail Partner

Sep 13, 2018
Did you know that Trivia was a goddess in roman mythology?
She is the goddess of graveyards,she roams around at night and can only be seen by barking dogs?
The world is full of magical things.

Postscript: Did you know the Mars family named the Snickers bar after their family’s pet horse?There may be a card in that information! 😄

Sep 22, 2018
I knew a woman who, at 92-years-old, mowed her own large lawn herself. One day, as I passed by, she was down on the ground so I stopped because I thought she had fallen. SILLY ME!!
Cleaning out the blades!

Having a cup of coffee with her one afternoon, I asked her what she thought kept her so active at 92, to which she replied, “I have a glass of Mogen David each morning with my breakfast.” WOOHOO!! She proceeded to show me the bottle as well as the glass — it was one of those small vintage genteel wine glasses (it had thistles etched on it).

At the “sale” when she died, I purchased that glass for $2 … I would have paid $100 for it.
Here’s to all the women like Eleanor 🍷🍷🍷🍷 May we be those women.

Jan 21, 2019
I lost both my brother and my mother in the month of December.
It has been 25 years for my brother and 10 years for my mother.
The grief has evolved into cherishing the memories. But this year was particularly difficult and I cannot find the “why,” so I passed it to the trees in the woods behind my home. Perhaps they will whisper it to me when the wind blows. 😊 Then again, does the “why” matter?

Oct 3, 2019
My friend, Annie, who lives in Florida, practices roman Catholicism
and one year she sent me a list of “the works of mercy”
and we worked them together for a whole year.
She in Florida and me in Missouri.
One at a time and then we would start over.
It was a challenge to “visit the imprisoned”
since there is no prison near me and
actually you cannot just go in a prison and
visit people.😃
I found a group of religious women who
COULD visit prisoners and one of their
works of mercy was to take magazines
to the prisoners, so I would give them magazines.
I latched on to their work of mercy 😇
And I thought being in a nursing home would
be like being in prison (for ME anyway)
AND you can visit people in a nursing facility pretty easily.
So I would pick a day, go to the front desk and ask
to visit a person who did not have any visitors.
I made some great friends doing that!!
AND I learned a lot!

Apr 6, 2020
I have been spending some time documenting things that delight me 👏👏
as I am in the midst of “stay at home” except for groceries, pharmacy, doctor or post office.
i.e.: At the grocery store I saw an Italian couple 👫having a disagreement
about which butter to purchase.
So animated and excited, hands flying 💃
and those beautiful soft-sounding Italian words.
The Italian language isn’t referred to
as a romantic language for nothing. 😊
She won 😘
I have no idea what they said
but I was delighted to watched the encounter 😊

Apr 15, 2020
I sat down in the middle of my jonquil bed on Sunday.
Took a stack of Cardthartic cards with me,
selected one for each of 10 neighbors and friends,
writing their name on the corner of the envelope,
so I would not forget which was which.
(I left a space in the middle of my jonquil bed when I planted it many moons ago,
where I can lie down or sit down and be surrounded by jonquils,
the aroma is thought-altering.)
In that space, I have had many a forgiving-thought, that caused a forgiving action.
The jonquils are beginning to encroach on that space.
I had to tell them, “Whoa, don’t take liberties!”
I left feeling gifted by the beauty of both the jonquils and the Cardthartic cards.
A two-for-one experience 👏

Jun 2, 2020
The last five years or so of my career (43 years at Barnes Hospital)
I worked part-time in an outpatient department as a medical imager.
I was the only white girl in the department.
I LOVED working there.
I learned a lot about African-American life,
and made many friends there,
many poignant stories were told to me.

I was brought to tears many times by their stories.
As a white woman, I would not give a thought to going into a shop I had not been in before.
But my black friends would — would they be ignored, would they even be asked to leave?
If I would be out walking and a police car passed, I would not give a thought to it.
But my black friends would — would the car return and stop them?

I am very grieved these days as I think of them.
Violence will NEVER solve violence, or anything for that matter.

Then there is something a black friend told me,
“I am so tired of being afraid,” she said.
“My friends are not “thugs,” they are good, educated, professional women and men.”
I know I CANNOT even imagine what that fear feels like. I have never been afraid like that.

Jul 19, 2020
I believe John Lewis was one of the “lamed vav tzadikim,”
one of the 36 hidden righteous people alive in every generation
who keep the world from self-destructing from meanness.
These people are hidden from themselves and from others.
No one knows who they are.
I am always on the look-out for them.

Everything is a story or can be 🙃 to a storyteller 💃
judy cortner
💃💃💃💃