A project to believe in: Letters To Pushkin
Last year, Sharon and I launched a new web site for helping people cope with the loss of a loved one through the use of letter-writing. Sharon, my incredible wife, was inspired to create an online letter-writing experience after having used letter-writing as means of working through the loss of Pushkin, our beagle. At the time, building it felt like a great way that she and I could work together on memorializing Pushkin, and I thought, “you never know… maybe someone will write a letter.”
Well, here we are about 8 months later and response has been overwhelming. We’ve gathered over 350 folks on Facebook (update: 1250+) and somewhere over 40 public letters, not to mention those that folks are keeping them private. Most of the letters have been written to lost cats and dogs, but there are also beautiful letters written to a horse, a parrot and even letters from folks that have lost parents. I am so deeply moved by some of the letters. To see such an open & honest expression of love & loss is so touching. Having lost my own mom this April, I’ve found it almost too hard at times to read them but that hasn’t stopped me from spending whatever time I have outside commitments to tweaking the back-end and adding features. I LOVE that people are engaging and I LOVE that people are sharing. I watched a Ted talk featuring Simon Sinek in which he talks about some companies/people are successful because the sell you not the thing they make, but the thing in which they believe. It was fascinating and it got me thinking about Letters To Pushkin – I think Simon’s right, and I think to take it a step further, I think people “buy what you believe” because believing in it makes it worth buying.
http://www.letterstopushkin.com
Thank you to all of those folks sharing, and spreading the word. Knowing that so many people get it gives me so much hope.