Reflective Blogger

Sabine at Days of My Life in Gozo has kindly passed on to me the Reflective Blogger Award. This is my first blogger award and I am flattered. Sabine is one of the photohunters whose site I have enjoyed not only on the day of the photohunt but also throughout the week. She lives in Gozo and one of the fun things to me about blogs is finding out about places I've never been to. She has a beautiful blog filled with interesting posts and photographs. The photohunters in general have opened up this whole new avenue of ways to learn about different parts of the world because the participants are from all over.The way it works when you receive the Reflective Blogger Award is that you are supposed to pass it on to five individuals who have been an encouragement, a source of love or impacted your life in some way. Certainly no one is a greater source of love or has impacted my life more than my daughter and she recently started a vegetarian food blog but I thought I would name people who I didn't know until I started participating in the blogging and online community. In terms of a collective group, the community of people who are affected by melanoma and who post on the MPIP are the reason that I started using the internet for purposes beyond, work, research and communicating with family via email. I discovered this wonderful group of caring supportive people on the MPIP (MRF operated site). They all deserve a big thank you from me. Some of the MPIP participants have blogs which is how I got into blogging in the first place.I compiled a partial list of people with melanoma who blog although sadly many on this list are no longer with us. However, it's not only those with blogs who have become my blogging buddies. If you go to the blogs of people who are dealing with a melanoma diagnosis, there are often other melanoma warriors who don't have blogs themselves but are cheering on those who do in the comment section. I have always been shy about mentioning names of people I want to thank on my blog because I'm afraid I'll leave off the very person I meant to mention first. I tend to do my thank you notes in emails and cards but if I haven't said thank you lately, thank you to my dear friends. About now I can hear someone in the back of the room saying, wrap it up why don't you, and let us know what you are leading up to already.
I have decided on the five bloggers that I want to pass on the Reflective Blogger Award to. Sadly none of these bloggers are with us anymore. Their lives were claimed by melanoma but their wisdom, struggle, and thoughtful blogs remain for anyone who wants to visit. The version of their names I give is what they used when posting on the MPIP.

Shannon (Butterflymom) whose words live on at Melanoma, Life, and Other Crazy Stuff

SarahT whose words live on at Que Sarah, Sarah

Heather whose words live on at Living with Melanoma

RandyE whose words live on at Randy's Blog

Kim from Iowa whose words live on at Kim's Update Page

Note - There were many others I started to include but decided to stick to the five who had open blogs which don't require sign in information to look at them. BarbaraGA is one of the first people I got to know through the MPIP who didn't make it, but I'm not sure if you can see her story without signing in. There are some beautiful blogs and memorial pages which loved ones keep. Melasuckanoma is a place where you can see pictures of many melanoma warriors who participate on the MPIP and sadly many who are no longer with us. I hope this post isn't too sad because what I'm trying to say is that something the internet can do is bring people together who can support each other at the hardest times they face and in many cases laugh and crack each other up. Even now when I visit some of the bloggers who are no longer with us, I can remember shared jokes and that's the note I want to end this post on.