"Little things can destroy, but little things can also build."

Interviewing Rich Sullivan of To Write Love On Her Arm's, I knew it would be a powerful story. But the last thing I expected was to pulled into the telling of that story.

In my relatively short career as a journalist, I've held countless phone interviews. I'm used to being the disembodied voice on the other end that coaxes animated yet informative conversation, but whose name they probably won't recall by the time we hang up. After all, it's not about me. It's about the interviewee and penning their story.

But just as TWLOHA isn't your everyday organization, neither was this an everyday phone call. Throughout the interview, Rich not only knew my name, he used it. It seems like a tiny gesture, but it gave off the impression that my input mattered, and that my thoughts were relevant. Much like the message TWLOHA professes.

The interview stretched to a remarkable two hours before an appointment required me to reluctantly hang up the phone. But by the end I realized what was intended to be a professionally conducted interview became something more, something bigger...

... it became conversation.

By definition, conversation is something deeper than small talk. It's an intimate exchange of thoughts between two people. And in our conversation, Rich expressed so many different concepts that I wanted so badly to share with people but were impossible to fit into an 800 word article.

One of these beliefs is the fact that we live in a world that is both heavy and light:

"We have learned and we really believe that there's a tension; there's a constant tension that exists in life. And what that is, is that's the space between the good and the bad, the up and the down, the happy and the sad if you will. Our hearts are heavy and they're sad and people die and there's loss. And at the same time our hearts can be light. We are loved. There are communities surrounding us. There is help and there is hope. What that creates is there's a tension in between those two things that pull and push against each other," Sullivan said. "It would probably be the best way to sum up the very place where people fall and also the very place where people find help and get picked back up. We believe it all happens in the same place, which is that tension in between heavy and light things in life."

TWLOHA has been a voice and presence for countless people who have lost sight of that light at the end of the tunnel. Their very purpose reminds us that something as simple as a conversation, a display of compassion or simply making someone feel relevant can make all the difference. In some cases, it could be the pivotal change from despair.. to hope.

With that said, this is one article I recommend everyone take a peek at: http://www.101distribution.com/article/TWLOHA-093009