Gossip - Remember Me?

  Photo by Robert Stock

 I found an old yellowed Ann Landers newspaper clipping on my bedroom floor, it had fallen out of a keepsake box.  I hope you will be challenged or comforted by this old Ann Landers column on gossip.  Even the Bible equates gossip with murder because it ruins a reputation and plants doubts or preconceived notions in others' minds many times about an innocent person. Whether you are the person gossiped about or the bystander hearing a loved one being gossiped about the pain can be irreversible.

Dear Ann Landers:  A few years ago you printed an insightful piece about gossip and the damage it can do.  A great many people need to be reminded.  Would you please print it again?
- Watertown, Wis.

Dear Watertown:  I agree.  Here it is.  Thanks for asking.

Gossip - Remember Me?

My name is Gossip.  I have no respect for justice.

I maim without killing.  I break hearts and ruin lives.

I am cunning and malicious and gather strength with age.

The more I am quoted, the more I am believed.

I flourish at every level of society.

My victims are helpless.  They cannot protect themselves against me because I have no name and no face.

To track me down is impossible.  The harder you try, the more elusive I become.

I am nobody's friend.

Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same.

I topple governments and wreck marriages.

I make innocent people cry in their pillows.

My name is Gossip.


From an Ann Landers newspaper column