I will be honest and say I did not believe it possible that the letters and messages of encouragement would have triggered something in Bill that made it possible for him to read again, the first time in more than a year since he had a debilitating stroke that prevented him reading and writing and brought him to live in the Mansion, an assisted care facility where I work as a volunteer with Red.

Two weeks ago, Bill told me he felt he had no reason to live, and greatly missed a connection with the gay community, a profoundly important and defining part of his life.  He said at 82, he had lost hope and purpose. He rarely got out of bed.

He told me he could not read or write or see well. I got him CD’s and audio books and a CD player, but it was just frustrating him more. He said he just couldn’t figure it out.

In the past weeks, after I asked for help on the blog, Bill began receiving beautiful, affirming messages from people all over, and his mood and  demeanor changed before our delighted eyes. The staff was elated. He began smiling, joking, moving around, taking walks, it was as if the letters – read to him by me and the Mansion aides – were some kind of miraculous medicine, a spiritual IV that began to revive him and give him hope.

I have never seen anything quite like that, not in a decade of therapy work among the elderly and the dying. Each letter was like a powerful vitamin, a miracle drug.

At first, Bill could not believe that these letters were for  him. Then, he could hardly wait to read them.

Today, when I came into the Mansion, he was sitting on the porch, grinning at me, waving to me, and he fairly shouted, “hey, I’ve been looking for you, I’ve been waiting for you! I read today.  I can read today, I read a letter today from beginning to end, for the first time since my stroke!”

He was elated, his face filled with joy. He gave me a great hug.

Then he said “this is because of you,” and I corrected him, and said, “no Bill, this is because the community you said you need  found you and and reached out to you, and given you what you always said you needed. Your community come back to you.”

Bill read the letter to me in his room, and then again on the porch, he is saving it to read to his daughter, who is coming to visit him tomorrow.

The letter was from Gaye F, It began this way: “Dear Bill, I hope this note finds you well…I have been reading about you online. Although I live in the South, and am straight, I felt moved to write to you. Most of us are drowning in loneliness and dying for connection to community. We we would never dare admit it. We would rather accept misery that open up to the world with our needs. I admire your bravery in being open with your struggles. We all want connection. We all need affection. And we are so afraid of speaking up. I hope that by being open, your tribe finds you..”

Gaye’s letter was apt, and it follows a daily stream of messages from gay men and women all over the country, from Los Angeles to New York City. Day by day, as these messages (and cakes and cupcakes and scarves) arrived, Bill’s outlook got brighter and more energetic.

I have been taking pictures of Bill for some  time now, and he never once smiled until these last days. Now he is always smiling.

He had a stroke, and doctors have told me that recovery from strokes is part medical, part physical, part emotional. I could see that Bill felt he had nothing to live for, and had been cut off forever from his community. I saw the letters restore this. Bill is having surgery on his eyes, I did not believe he was fully able to read these letters, but today, he was and did.

I don’t want to emotionalize his experience, his stroke was serious and he has a number of serious cognitive issues to work through. But this was a remarkable breakthrough, when I left, was clutching Gaye’s letter, reading it over and over. Bill cautioned me that he was not quite ready to read books again, and I asked him what he might like to read and he told me and I am going out to get some books for him first thing next week.

I won’t push it on him, but I want  him to have the books he likes by his bedside. (Please don’t send any at this point, we need to go slowly and cautiously.)

One of the Mansion residents died recently, he was the sweetest man, and I wrote about him that he was a Prince In The Kingdom of Heart, and the term stuck in my mind. I think in our corner of this universe, in this place, with these people reading together, we have formed our own Kingdom Of The Heart, an antidote to the poison and hatred that sometimes flows all around us.

I am wary of over-reacting to things.Bill has a good long ways to go,  but I sometimes think that in the Kingdom Of Heart, miracles are possible. I feel I witness one day, and thanks to all of you good people who reached outside of yourselves and brought connection and community to someone tottering at the edge of life.

(Bill is seeking letters and messages from people in the gay community, his community, he also welcomes letters from others. You can write Bill c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. These messages are making a difference.)