Having several times been on the receiving end of unexpected news or unanticipated events that upend and redefine your life, my heart goes out to our friend (and Daily Fix contributor) Gavin Heaton ....

Just prior to Christmas, Gavin’s father-in-law Noel was one of a group of cyclists who were hit by an automobile. Noel was one of the most severely injured; he remains in critical condition. (Read specifics on this blog.)

Now, the blogging community is rallying around Gavin and his family, offering him support in many forms.

Blog friendships—even those forged on a business blog like this one—are in a special category, because the immediacy and intimacy of blogging begets the same with the people who practice it regularly. By "intimacy" I don't mean in a dreamy romantic sense. Rather, I mean that regularly reading a blogger's posts and comments, seeing whether they play well with others, and gauging how they react to those who don't play well with them, gives you a deeper sense of an individual than most casual business relationships are usually capable of delivering.

My non-blogging friends and colleagues don't really understand this—"How can you be friends with someone you've never met?" But there's a reason that bloggers always hug when they meet, because they already, well... know each other.

The larger lesson here is that community comes in many forms. Right now, I encourage all of you who feel so inspired to act however you see fit.

* Leave a kind word.

*Donate if you can. (Thanks to Cam Beck.)

Why? David Armano said it best:

"Because if it happened to us, we'd be fortunate and blessed to have others do the same."

(Thanks to David for finding this wonderful photo and for designing the graphic, too.)