Readers

"Writers write so readers can read."*

This blog is several years old. I've written about all manner of things - a helicopter ride, a cruise, a grandson. Some have been fun, others legalese and a few just a man alone with his laptop. I have mostly a small following and get 30-40 hits on each post. One offering, a piece about the Aurora cinema shooting, has received about 120 hits since July. When a small-time writer grows a following, he or she begins with a core of loyal readers and builds from there.

Last night, alone and terribly angry, I sat down to frame some thoughts about the Jessica Ridgeway case. I intended a warning but instead hope came out. Hope for the just conclusion to this sad case, brought into being, in large part, by the selfless dedication of professional men and women in law enforcement. Local cops, State officials and Federal officers, dispatchers, victim advocates, records specialists, criminalists.... It's what we do, and people like Jessica and her family for whom we do it.

To date, this post has received two hundred seventy hits in twenty four hours.

I am touched, beyond my meager ability to express. The greatest gift to a writer, writing from the heart, is to have someone read it.

To everyone who read, shared, commented or said a silent prayer for Jessica, I can only say thank you.

*William Forrester (Sean Connery), Finding Forrester, 2000