This morning, I woke up thinking about an old friend. In fact, I had dreamed that I ran into her and her wonderful family, and I was so happy to see her. “Right,” I thought, “this is a sign that you need to text her.”
I had actually been meaning to text her for the past couple of weeks, since the Hamas attacks on October 7. She is Jewish, and her posts on social media about this terrible time have been moving and thought-provoking. I wanted her to know I’d been thinking of her and to thank her for what she has been sharing.
Pulling up her name on my phone, I spent a few minutes crafting a text I felt more or less reflected my feelings and hit send. About 30 minutes later, I received this in response:
“This is the sweetest message ever but I’m afraid I don’t know who this is!”
AAUUUGGGGGGGHHH. What had I done? I didn’t think I knew anyone else who had that first name, so what was going on?
As you’ve probably already figured out, in the unedited hundreds of contacts in my phone, going back to parents of my kids’ friends who they haven’t hung out with since third grade, there was indeed another person with this first name. That’s who I sent this very personal text to.
The good news is, this person was seemingly happy to reconnect and not bothered that I hadn’t actually been thinking of her. The better news is, she went on to say, “I’m sure the other (first name) will be honored by your thoughts, and I hope she’s doing okay.”
I’m really grateful to this acquaintance for handling my mis-text with such grace. And I also feel like, maybe, we generated a bit more kindness and love and goodwill in the world, by accident. I’ll take it.
