Most of you reading this probably already know that Michele Neff Hernandez, the founder and Executive Director of Soaring Spirits International, was chosen by CNN as one of the Top 10 Finalists for CNN Hero of the Year. That, in itself, is unbelievably surreal and exciting. It was VERY surreal when Anderson Cooper was on my TV saying Michele’s name and talking about her, as he announced the Top 10 finalists. What is even more incredible is that on December 12th, next Sunday night, The CNN Hero Winner, whose non-profit will receive a grant for $100,000, will be announced live on CNN, in a special event hosted by Anderson Cooper and Kelly Ripa. Until then, voting is daily, and you can vote up to 10 times per day just by pushing a button that turns your one vote into ten.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/vote/10/
Michele will be headed to NYC to attend the live TV event, walk the red carpet, and do what she does so much better than just about anyone else – represent our widowed community accurately, thoughtfully, and with hope and great care. That is one of the many things about Michele that makes her so wonderful – she truly cares about each and every widowed person that crosses her path. When a widowed person tells her their story, she somehow has the ability to remember the small details that are personal. She remembers names and faces and stories and why THIS day is particularly hard for you, or that you lost your mom to cancer 2 months after losing your spouse. When she hugs you, its a real hug – with feeling. When you speak to her about something, she makes you feel like you are the one she is focused on in that moment. Michele not only created a community of widowed people, but she does everything she can to ensure that community is a positive, uplifting, and very down to earth one.
I am not exaggerating when I say that Michele and Soaring Spirits saved my life. More importantly, they GAVE me a life again. About 10 months into the loss of my husband Don Shepherd that rocked my world and changed me forever, I got an email from Michele. She explained that when her husband Phil died suddenly, she began slowly building this community. She asked if I would like to be a weekly writer on their blog called “Widows Voice”, and by the way, did I want to also get on a plane and go to some bizarre thing called CAMP WIDOW and give a comedic presentation for 75 minutes about grief and death and loss??? After my stunned silence, I believe my response was: “What the hell is Camp Widow?”, and then: “Hell yes!!!” That was in 2013. Here we are in 2021, and Im still giving presentations at Camp Widow, and it’s still the thing Im probably most proud of in my life after loss. Hearing widowed people laugh has become my favorite sound, and being the reason for that laughter is something that gives me tremendous purpose and meaning. The MANY friends I have met over the years at Camp Widow and at other SSI events online and in-person – the endless opportunities to help another widowed person get through something, figure something out, or achieve something – the different ways in which our amazing community comes together to build each other up, celebrate each others victories, and walk hand in hand through the impossible – there are no words.
When you lose the person you thought youd spend the rest of your life with to death – your entire world alters forever. You feel as if you have died too. You dont have the faintest idea of how to begin again, where to start, or if you even want to. Finding the strength and the energy to just get up each day in your new reality feels like the most impossible of tasks.
At the point in which I felt the most hopeless, Michele walked into my life and showed me hope. She didnt push hope onto me or make me think positively or anything like that. No. She just shined her light of hope on me and near me, so that I knew it was there when and if I felt like grabbing onto it. She gave me a family – a group of people who would validate my words and thoughts, who would laugh with me at the absurdity of our situations, and who would offer choruses of “me too! I do that too!” all the times I thought I had truly lost my mind as a newly widowed person.
Michele was there for me in so many ways, and continues to be. When I wrote my book about love and loss, she agreed to write the Foreword. When I did my TEDx talk, she let me tell the story of her and Phil and Michael and Camp Widow, as one of my examples to demonstrate my message that “love grows love.” When I fell in love for the first time after my loss, and had my heart shattered into a billion pieces when it turned out he didnt share my feelings the way I thought; Michele booked one of the conference rooms DURING CAMP WIDOW and met me there, so we would have a private place for me to tell her what had just happened, and literally sob hysterically into her loving arms for what felt like hours, but was probably about 30 minutes. Through all of the things, she was there and she was cheering me on and holding me tight and letting me know it would be okay, eventually. And the amazing thing about Michele is that I know she has done similar things for SO MANY OTHER widowed people. It goes on and on, the ways in which her heart expands to help and show kindness and friendship to so many.
If Michele does not win CNN’s Hero of the Year Award, she has already won the title of being my Hero and I know so many others feel the same. What is written here is just honestly the tip of the iceberg of all the reasons I love this woman so very much. Michele is my friend, and she is a true friend to the widowed community. Without her guidance, love, support, and flashlight of hope; I shutter to think about where I would have ended up in my widowed tsunami. Let’s not even think about it.
I love you , Michele. I am so very proud to call you friend, and for the rest of the world to see your astonishing achievements, as the community you have created gets the recognition it so fully deserves. Love grows love.