I don’t even know what to say. So if you’ve emailed me and I haven’t replied, it’s not because I’m being rude, it’s because I’m just shocked.

It’s amazing how your life can turn upside-down on a dime and it just leaves you sinking… adrift…. wondering how you’ll survive.

Part of me just wants to scream. I just finished a cancer battle. A two and a half year struggle for my life. I came out on the up side, and I’m cancer free now, but that leaves scars. The interesting thing about losing all of your potential income is that it feels very much like cancer felt. I’m hopeless. My life was just ransacked by someone I’ll never met. I’ve never meet. Everything is upside-down and inside-out. Nothing is certain anymore. I’m reminded again how little control we actually have over our own lives. It’s a horrible reminder that someone else controls the purse strings. Someone else controls your ability to survive.

People say not to panic, but what else is there? Panic. Fight or flight. It’s not always a bad thing. I might be down, but I’m not out.

I put my post up yesterday because I’ve built myself a huge network through this website. I figured I’d be an absolute fool not to tap into it for leads on employment. Then, I was contacted by numerous parties asking for me to put up a donation button. I felt weird about it, but I did it. Honestly, when you’re staring down the barrel of…whatever hopelessness this is… you have to swallow your pride and tap into whatever help people are willing to offer.

So my husband and I have been staring at those of you who have been offering advice, pouring over your comments and letters, and looking at your donations to our anti-homeless cause with tears in our eyes… and absolute stunned silence.

I don’t even know what to say except thank you. None of you will ever realize how much you’ve helped us in a horrible time. Because of you, we’ll be able to buy ourselves food for a little while longer.

Never let it be said that people don’t care, or that this community, this beautiful, sprawling, nerdy community has no heart, because it does. It has been pumping for us since our lives fell apart yesterday. Your caring, tenderness, kindness has given us hope in this amazingly dark, very terrifying time. You are people that I’ve only interacted with online, or maybe never interacted with at all, but you care enough to help this nerdy chick in Utah and I can’t even…

What can I possibly say to that?

I wish you could see the tears of gratitude in my eyes as I type this, because they are there.

This community, this amazing community stood by me during my cancer battle, and now you guys are standing buy me – no, lifting us up – during this horrible upheaval.

I have written every one of your names on my heart.

Thank you. You’ll never know how much you’ve helped us.