One of the best things social media – and particularly Twitter – did for me was introduce me to Lisa Bonchek Adams. She was funny and snarky and wise.
She began most days by sending out this message:
Find a bit of beauty in the world today.
Share it.
If you can’t find it, create it.
Some days this may be hard to do.
Persevere.
When I met her, she was already a breast cancer survivor. She used her website as well as her presence on Twitter to raise awareness of metastatic breast cancer and help people work through grief. She was tremendously helpful to me when my own father died.
In 2012, she learned her cancer had returned and she chronicled her journey -its highs and lows – for all of us. In 2015, she died.
Last month, her brother and her mother put out a book of Lisa’s writings. It is “a guide for patients, families, friends and caregivers, written in Lisa’s unique writing style—part poetry, journal and memoir.”
A wonderful tribute to a wonderful person, someone I still think about all the time even though, sadly, we never met in person.
Sometimes social media seems to be hastening the rise of hatred and division. But it can also introduce us to people who touch our lives in ways we never could have anticipated.
neil shurley 
I think of her some days, too. I remember she’d posted on Twitter a photo of some flowers in her garden and I mentioned that I liked them, but didn’t know if they’d grow around here. She was having chemo at the time but she replied almost immediately to me, a stranger, with the name of a garden nursery where I could find info on the flowers. I was grateful, and shocked, by her kindness. Her goodness lives on.