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Thanks for sharing how you are doing, benderson. I am keeping you in my thoughts and prayers.

Benderson I am keeping you in thought and in my prayers.

I had the great priveledge of getting to be friends with Benderson and meeting her in about 2003 at No-porn.com. Over the years several friends from that board and this one have "talked" nearly daily about our lives, families, friends, jobs, kids, and so many ridiculously funny things. Porn addiction slipped to the background and our friendship was about the many imporant things in our lives.

Every thing I want to write sounds trite in writing or too long winded. I guess I will just think that bender knew me well enough that if she were to read this she would either skip over it knowing I can be an incessant babbler, or read it and know it is well intended.

I had started sending cards to benderson this summer and asked my little girls to draw a picture one day for her to send in the card. So many times over the years since I came across this board I've been struck by what an incredibly amazing thing it is to have happened upon some wonderful friendships that came out of experiencing such a terrible part of each of our lives. And yet, along the way and now over quite a few years, we are friends in so many other ways and know so much about each other aside from the reason we came here in the first place. My friends "from here" are so real to me that my children send them their pictures. My friends, like benderson, know more about my girls than some of my friends right here at home. Maybe too writing (on the internet) lets us say things we might not speak.

I feel like I have learned a lot about grace, acceptance, choosing battles, being impartial, having a strong opinion and when to express it and when not to from you Benderson. Through your example I would bet many women learn a lot, and feel validated and stronger. Part of how we all end up here is needing reassurance that we are really ok or going to be. Beyond your exceptional humor is often such solid advice and comfort. More recently you told me something to the effect of this was just another bump in the bumpy road and I will get past it. And you were right of course as you always seem to be.

Without a second thought you accepted your friends here and in other sites you are involved with as "real," inviting them into your home and life with love and compassion and Benderesque humor, generosity, and authentic love. You walk your own path with such direction that others feel more comfortable walking with you, and on their own paths. I admire that so much.

You helped start MAPA and supported its beginning, many middles, and maybe now end. Your constant presence there helped many others feel ok about every stage.

You have helped shape npsupport.net and the experience of many women and men at No-Porn in countless positive ways by sharing your own story, always seeming to be familiar with everyone else, being a friend to so many people, and by moderating fairly.

Through each and every court battle I have been through to protect my child from PA, Benderson and my friends that I met at this site have been the first I have turned to, the first to call or write and ask how things went, the most clued in with advice, support, and even just virtually sitting with me when I needed it. But so much more than that, a friend about all the topics that come up in our lives. You so often give so much and ask for so little.

It is confusing to have "seen" you every day and then realize we are really so far apart. This weekend my mother asked "How is Benderson?" And you are in the thoughts of so many people all over this country. The Benderson we all have come to know is about so much more than sadness or anger over porn addiction. I feel that, for me, your example...one of moving on, having friends, closeness with family, traveling, making a home, taking a stand, findng so much funniness in so many things, your faith in yourself and in other people....all that, and so much more...those are the things I admire about you.

The one thing I never did really learn from you was the art of brevity. But I sure did admire you for it.

In some ways you are so much larger than life to me. I always think of you as a cross between your photos of you so absolutely beautiful on your wedding day, and you riding a horse in jeans and hair flying in the breeze. A gorgeous model crossed with an ass kicking cowgirl! And your feminine and Texas twinged voice reminds me that ass kicking doesn't necessarily mean yelling.

I could go on forever....but really I just wish you could know, hope you do know... how lucky I am that I met you.