Life is a crazy, meandering thing.

This is Cathy Costello. I never knew she existed until yesterday.  She showed up on one of those crazy Oklahoma Senior Follies/ Ms. Senior Oklahoma pageant emails I have been trying to get off the mailing list of for over a decade (It started out as pageant emails for Ms. Senior Oklahoma pageants and then morphed into Senior Follies in Oklahoma emails)

Over the weekend I started getting Oklahoma Senior Follies emails again, and I shot off an email to the entire un-BCC’d mailing list. And yes I was QUITE testy…I have been trying to get off these email lists I never signed up for for over a decade. I have found it maddening (right or wrong) that I can’t get off these e-mail lists.

I do not even have any friends or family in Oklahoma, I just ended up on these e-mail list and chains. And for over a decade it has been this thing that (again right or wrong) just irritated the snot out of me – it didn’t matter if I was polite or miserable, I could not get off these e-mail lists. Even by blocking many of the senders e-mail addresses I could not stop the flow of misdirected e-mails.

Anyway, this lady Cathy Costello replied to me by accident in response to my cranky gram (a get-me-the-hell-off-this-email-list-it-has-been-over-a-decade message), and after I climbed off the ceiling from being Ms. Cranky Pants  we swapped a couple of e-mails and she told me her story. Her husband Mark, who had been the Labor Commissioner of the State of Oklahoma was stabbed (and subsequently died) by a young man suffering from schizophrenia on a psychotic break.  The young man was one of their children. Her son. Reading her words was almost surreal and put life right back into perspective in as much as what is truly important. (As in shut my mouth and quit complaining is what I said to myself)

It never ceases to amaze me how people who are total strangers to one and other can relate to each other for even a moment in time, or in a misdirected email.  Crazy as it sounds, this Cathy is the kind of person anyone would like to have as a friend.

So today I Googled her story.  I was blown away by the devastating reality of it.  I found her Facebook page Cathy Costello for Hope and gave her video a listen so my pen pal by accident had an actual human voice.

Six degrees of separation – it’s crazy the way life and fate connect you to people for even a few moments or a few hours.

I think Cathy’s voice is a good one to hear, so I hope you take the time for her video, and more importantly her message. She is true grace in the face of unbelievable loss and tragedy so I am paying it forward.

Mental illness touches so many.  I have had friends affected by it over the years, and I have friends who have had family members affected by it for years.  One of my closest and best friends is a mental health social worker in another state – she has been the help and advocate for so many over the years.  And I can’t help but also think about the teenagers lost to depression and suicide in this area over the past few years, as well.

So I am paying it forward.

Her website is Cathy Costello for Hope.

Thanks for stopping by.