One Million Lovely Letters: When Life is Looking Hopeless, One… by Jodi Ann Bickley

Do you ever think things happen for a reason?

At the end of February, I was pondering, debating and trying be brave whilst making a decision and the right decision about my Mum's belongings.

I had just had an idea and parked the thinking whilst I went to meet someone, who I knew, but I could not think of a good enough excuse not to meet. Whilst I parked my idea and was killing some time in the Exeter branch of Waterstones I spotted two books. This one, and the book that I will be reviewing tomorrow.

From the moment I picked up the two books I knew that my idea was right, and the scope of this book (and other book reviewed tomorrow) confirmed it.

This is the story of the author. Diagnosed with a life threatening condition, the author spent time reflecting on her past. In her past the grief she felt as a child at the death of her Grandmother was coped with my writing a letter to Grandma in Heaven. What a lovely way to enable a child to say goodbye. I had lost my Grandfather as a child. I do not recall seeing either my Grandmother or Mum crying, they must have done and hid their grief as a way of protecting me. All I knew what that he had gone to heaven and one day, a long time from now I would see him again. I am sure I asked how? and knowing Mum she probably sighed and pondered on how to respond. She would have responded, but now, forty years on I don't remember.

I digress.

The book is a background of events leading up to the author being admitted to hospital and the seriousness of her condition. As I said, she reflects on how the letter to her Grandmother in Heaven made her feel and set about writing letters to people, strangers that needed just someone to say it's OK, or I know it's hard. Letters that found a way of empathising without being patronising.

Jodi has been writing letters to random people since she was seven years old. Jodi describes it as a "hug in an envelope". And perhaps it is,but to me, on that dreary February day it was more than a hug in an a book. It gave me hope,encouragement and faith to believe in myself.

Jodi has a website which can be found HERE