Letter #49

Letter writing topic for February 18, 2010:

Today, write a "bell ringing" letter to a friend. What in the world is that, you may be asking.

Let me explain.

A while back, not long after I started this blog, I started following the "An Explorer's View of Life" blog by Barry Fraser. He lives in Canada, and I have no idea how I came across his blog. It's likely I linked to it from someone else's blog. His blog, at that time, was a general, life's experiences type of blog. He often wrote about his dog, Lindsay, and sometimes about his wife, Linda. On Fridays, he posted pictures from around his community.

Then, almost a year ago, Barry was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. As Barry has dealt with the diagnosis, the treatment and the life changes that have gone with such things, he has continued to blog. As you can imagine, there are days that his posts start the tears flowing. And, as Barry's blog has hundreds of followers, I'm sure there are tears flowing all over the world as people who have never known him outside his blog read about his struggles.

Today, Barry has his last chemotherapy treatment (at least for now). It is a tradition at center where he gets his treatment that as the patients leave the building after their last chemo treatment, they ring the bell. And, when they ring the bell, everyone nearby stops and applauds.

Barry is ringing that bell today at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

After he announced this on his blog, many of his followers/readers wrote to say that they would ring a bell at that time, too, to help celebrate his victory. You can read about the bell on his blog here and here and here. 

So, today, in honor of Barry and his last chemo treatment, today, write a letter ringing the bell for someone. Someone who has accomplished something, who has overcome such a great struggle, someone who has persevered, someone who deserves to ring a bell.