Defending Clara

I received this this morning through my email, and thought again, It is germane, and I think appropriate to post. That said, this is going to be the last post on this subject. I hope Clara writes more as I enjoy her insights, and we all have both detractors and supporters in this thing we call life.

So Happy Fathers Day to those of you who are one, and for the rest of you go forth and do no harm..... Read on...


Defending Clara

After reading some of the malicious comments written about my dear friend Clara, I felt the need to step in and respond. I have known Clara Hart since 2002 when she was introduced to a friend of mine. Clara was asked by her pastor to help a young woman with two small boys attend church and Clara being Clara agreed, sight unseen. This woman had lost her husband in the September 11^th, 2001 terrorist attacks. Six months later this widowed mother of two was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.

Clara befriended this woman and her children at great expense to herself. Clara planned her life around this small family and was always ready and willing to help whenever needed. I remember the times Clara called me crying, “I don’t think I can do this, it’s too hard, it hurts too much.” I told her “If this is where God wants you to be He will give you the strength to get through”. Clara survived on that strength. How many people would enter into a friendship with a dying woman? Clara did and she did it wholeheartedly and while she did her heart was broken.

When this woman died and her children moved away Clara grieved. She grieved not only for this young mother who had become her friend but also for the boys who had stolen her heart and now were lost by distance and time. Clara lost far more than friends; Clara lost a piece of her heart that I am not sure she has ever regained.

When Clara does something she does it oftentimes at great expense to herself. See, Clara is the type of person who thinks more of others and their needs than of herself and her own. When Clara does something she is motivated by the need to help, this need to make things right. She does not do it for recognition, she does it to try and make someone’s life a little easier simply because she can.

In many ways Clara has touched our lives. For those of you who’ve had the privilege of meeting her can you honestly say, with all the things she has said and done, your life would be better off if she had not entered it? My life would not, see, I inherited a gift from a dying woman, a woman who left me a wonderful, caring friend to fill the empty space left by death.

General housekeeping comments for the folks that read this

Hello all, I would like to say from the sunny state of Oregon, but that ain't quite the truth, it is not so sunny here.

I have had the pleasure of allowing Clara Hart to post blogs on here for the last several months, and have enjoyed reading what she wrote. So have other people based upon what I have seen.

Some of you may have different opinions, and being Americans we of course feel that if we have them we must share them. That is fine, I think that makes discourse and discourse is what allows democracy to survive. However, just so you know I reserve the right to post comments as I see fit.
If you are mean spirited, I might post your comment just to allow other people to see how mean spirited you are. If you are friendly then I will post as well. I am the person who receives the notification of a comment. It doesn't go straight to the board, if it did, I would end up having 900 numbers posted on the comments and I have already been there and done that, so, again, I receive an email, and publish those comments that are available as long as they are germane to the topic and don't cause me concern over safety.

So, Mrs. Soldierswife1984, your comments have been reviewed today and published today. Great. Fantastic in fact. I published your comments because the first one while fairly negative, is certainly your opinion. Of course in the second comment you resorted to essentially attack language. Here is my thought for you, you are registered for gmail, go ahead and post a blog, let's see what you think and how you think. If you are a fair minded, intelligent person, that will come through, if you are reactionary and caustic, that will come through as well. I say that knowing that you have been to the Fisher House for a reason, which means that you must have a loved one, who has gone forward into harms way, and been injured in a significant manner. My sympathies for your husbands injuries and I hope that he is doing as well as he can be.

Understand though, that you don't have any more valid point of view on Clara Hart than I do, and neither of us have met her, so before you go throwing stones in a personal manner, I would suggest you figure out how to identify what things bothered you, and if possible post a different point of view, devoid of personal attacks.

Okay, I normally don't write on this much anymore, because I don't have a great deal of very interesting things to talk about, and so I will stop for now, let me know what you would like written about.

KM