"You know what one of my favorite qualities is about you? You have this natural ability to make people open up to you. I don't know what it is about you, but you tend to put people at ease and make them comfortable enough to reveal their inner most secrets to you. And you do it all without even trying. People like to come to you because you can always find something positive in the most horrid of situations and make that one positive thing become the focal point of any situation. And without even knowing you, people can sense that about you. That's why you always have strangers walking up to you in the street, telling you their life stories...that's why you have 8 gazillion best friends who will do anything for you, that's why everyone likes you. You make people comfortable in an instant. How do you do that?"

10 years ago today, my husband wrote, what is pasted above, to me in an email, after I sent him a quick little note to wish him a Happy Birthday.

And even though he wasn't the first, nor is he the last, person to tell me that I was "comforting" (for lack of a better word,) what he didn't know at that time was that he did the exact thing for me. Having known just one person who can comfort me like that makes me forever grateful. I hope that I can continue to do the same for everyone else who enters my life.