You can change the world!

Tonight just feels like one of those nights where I need to make a post. As some of you may already know, I am a member of several support groups whose main purpose is to support women with either husbands or partners or children who are incarcerated. As a matter of fact, I wrote about one not too long ago thanking them for the support they had showed me since I joined their group. While it is one thing to be supportive of someone through the safety of an online support group, it is another thing entirely to have one of those members call you on the phone all the way from England!

Several weeks ago, I met a woman on one of these sites whose husband is in TDCJ. We had exchanged posts and stories and discovered that we had a lot in common. We were both thousands of miles away from our husbands and neither one of us got calls because, as we all know, TDCJ does not allow inmates to make international calls. We also both have family that have distanced themselves from us for the choice that we have made to stand by our husbands at all costs - a choice I guarantee you they will regret before we will. We talked and commiserated for quite some time about several bones of contention we had with the Texas justice system and the treatment of our respective husbands.

At the end of our call, she said to me "You know Kimberley, I just love your blogs. I read them all the time and some of them make me cry." While I know that what I write affects me right to the core of my being, I hadn't really realized the impact that they had on other people who are in the same, if not a very similar situation to my own. I have sent just about every blog that I have written to my husband and I always look for his approval on what I write and I get it in spades every time. He says "I get choked up when I read your blogs. I knew that people would love them. They are real. They are raw and it gives people something to believe in. You are helping people." I receive comments quite regularly about what I write and they are all wonderfully supportive and I appreciate every one of them. But truth be told, when I receive a comment like "this was definitely an amazing blog. It honestly brought tears to my eyes and made me remember to not take even the littlest things for granted with my other half", I know that I am making a difference so even though I've always been told, "You can't change the world"...maybe, just maybe, I am.