Melissa Sheehan opened a post-marked envelope on December 23 and was at first amused by its contents — a Christmas card with an image of Santa Claus toppled over in the snow. Then she read what was on the other side.
What she found was an angry, hand-written note signed by an anonymous neighbor who was triggered by the family’s pride flag outside. Sheehan, who lives with her wife, Kelly, and two teenage kids, shared it online:
“Sheehan’s – I drive by regularly and wanted to drop you a note about your signs and flags. I love your = and pride flag but if you are = why do you have to put it in everyones face? Seems you want to be special. Any functioning adult??? How did that work out for you. Record inflation, record illegals crossing, record debt, record low favorability rating for Joe the rapist even with a media that kisses his you fill in the blank. I don’t understand you people you would believe CNN, MSNBC, Rachel Maddow if they told you the sky was red. Just remember… you wanted this” the note read.
The letter was signed “your unequal neighbor.”
During the 2020 election, Melissa and Kelly displayed a sign outside their home endorsing “any functioning adult” for president. It was implied this group did not include Donald Trump.
“The sign was awesome,” Melissa told Mass Live. “There are so many people stopping, taking pictures of it so we left it up for quite a while.”
The sign has long since been taken down, but not forgotten by the angry neighbor. The Sheehans now display an equality flag, a transgender pride flag, and a Black Lives Matter flag.
The family was able to brush off the hate.
“As I’m reading the note, I really wasn’t angered. It was more laughing just out of the closed-mindedness of individuals,” Melissa said.
And when they shared it to their town’s Facebook page, supportive comments came pouring in.
“I wanted to share the beautiful Xmas card we received from an anonymous person in town. What I find crazy though, is this person didn’t sign the card when so much love went into it. You would think they want to take credit,” Kelly wrote.
One neighbor and family friend, Renee Considine, even asked to use the incident to raise money for the Trevor Project.
“If anything, we can turn some of the hate in this into some donations for the Trevor Project. It’s kind of a win-win for everybody,” Sheehan said. “It’s pretty nice to have such a good friend and ally living right next door.”
“I don’t think the letter is a full representation of our community,” Considine said. “Our community is amazing, wonderful place — supportive and loving and caring, and one that rallies together for any cause whether it’s this or someone is sick or someone needs help, our community is one that rallies together.”
rbernard
Angry people who take the time to write an anonymous note like this are cruel, unhappy, cowards for not identifying themselves or to stand accountable for their despicable actions.
I would recommend these ladies install a security system with a camera.
glenunsworth
Anybody with half an open mind can see this is just another Jesse Smollett nasty prank calling out for attention – try not to be so obviously next time
KyleMichelSullivan
And here come the bitter queens to piss on everything, again. There’s an old saying — If you can’t say something nice…or prove your criticism…STFU.
Cam
Thank you for exposing your new screename troll. Of COURSE you will always defend the bigots. And the fact that 3 years later you’re STILL triggered by the Smollet case…..well, maybe try some sleepytime tea.
Mr. Stadnick
You’re right it is and know what else Donald trump your lord and savior is going to rise again fly around the world smiting all who are not white men or hot chicks!
You tool
Den
And one can easily see from your inability to avoid very simple grammatical mistakes or take the time to proofread a very short post that you lack the intelligence to actually evaluate whether the letter is real or not.
The right is laughably stupid so much of the time. It is as if you folks crave humiliation.
Rivcuban
Obviously this guy has some serious sexual identity and internalized homophobia issues. He deserves no hate. He deserves pity.
Openminded
I’m fully Openminded and I still can’t see it, nor your point. Furthermore, I think the receiver of the card has a very good understanding of the situation when she stated that she basically believed this wasn’t a wide spread belief in her community but instead, that of an individual. If she were pulling a Smollett, I would think she would be screaming more like he did instead of trying to acknowledge it was probably the work of a single loser.
James Hart
I don’t know if this note is a hoax, but Jussie Smollett did all gays a disservice with his hoax. It trivialized gay-bashing.
Fname Optional Lname
Oh right because right wing bigots would never do such a hateful, cowardly thing! LOL! Stop reading blogs about Q!
miller2900
Hello rbernard! I’d have to agree with you on the ladies installing a security system with cameras…. lots of them! Hopefully none of us hear about this family getting hurt in the future by some “anonymous” whack job(s). It seems every nut case (right wing or otherwise) is looking to crawl out of their cave and blame the rest of the world for the problems they create themselves. I’d like to think I’ve aged into a pretty good “middle of the road” old guy with above all…. a lot of common sense! However, that attribute doesn’t seem to be in abundance in society. A good example are the crazy ideas that I’ve heard about vaccines makes absolutely no common sense to me. Especially coming from those that are old enough to remember all of the vaccines they received prior to entering the public school system…. and/or any branch of our Military! As far as I know no one has grown a third eye in the middle of their forehead or the back of their head from getting any of the vaccines. It’s no secret that certain segments of the population will always have some sort of negative reaction to ANY kind of meds! I’m not a gambling man (well, not too much) but I’d bet that having to experience some kind of adverse reaction to a vaccine or med would be much less of a gamble vs thinking I would escape a deadly flu virus. I’m just not that lucky of a guy. Especially when human history has no shortage data to pull from to tell us just how deadly “Pandemic Flu” can be. Ah, but what does an old guy know. Happy New Year rbernard! May we all make to this time next year with our sanity still intact!
Jaquelope
With such a caring community around, the anonymous neighbor will certainly be discovered, and I sincerely hope they become a pariah in that town. If they are on the Facebook page, they may already know how much support these two women already have. A security system/camera is still a good idea, too.
tjack47
What a bizarre letter! That is creepy. My last partner was out of town, and I left only long enough to pick up some takeout. On my return, someone had written Die F*ags on the other car along with some crude drawings, etc. Shoe polish. I figured certainly that, as we lived directly across the street from a high school, some adolescent had done it. Still, whomever it was, they had to see me leave and know they had enough time to do it. That’s a very strange thing to realize. I called the police. I had a positive interaction with them, especially after I dropped the name of a sergeant I knew. The next time I had to call, 4 patrol cars showed up. At any rate, I reported it to a national LGBTQ+ registry of hate crimes. I thought it was important to record it there.
Kangol2
That creepy, anonymous letter is pathetic but so typical of today’s right-wing. Note that the letter writer doesn’t seem to grasp that Biden’s unfavorability ratings still are not as low as Don the Con’s, and that despite all the allegations, Biden’s economic record so far exceeds Don the Con’s, despite the fact that unlike Don the Con inherited a growing economy from Obama, while Don the Con left Biden with one of the most wrecked economies since Herbert Hoover. The Don the Con cultists will never admit to how badly things (job losses, crime, Covid-19, etc.) spun out of control in 2020 but that record of disaster was one of the ages!
Thad
Notice the quick community response. That’s so Western Massachusetts to rally.
Hank31
This reminds me of the hoax from a few years ago, where a woman had multi-colored mason jars displayed on her property and a neighbor supposedly left a note objecting to the jars as “too gay.” Turned out that she had written the note herself for money and attention. In that case, the homeowner set up a crowdfund with a goal of tens of thousands of dollars supposedly to buy more mason jars to “really show that homophobic neighbor that we won’t back down!” In this case, it’s for the Trevor Project. Not saying that this one is definitely a hoax, but you have to wonder why there is always fundraising attached to stories like this.
Mack
Why not a fundraiser? The Republicans fart and calls it a conspiracy and then need a fundraiser to fight a conspiracy. Or in Donald case, send him money because………………………………..
Cam
Sweetie, you already tried this same tactic under your newer screename a few comments up.
And the fact that you dragged out this old troll screename to try to back it up is just sad. Like your trolling.
winemaker
As a kid who was constantly harassed in middle school and then high school ( grade school was with the nuns who didn’t allow stuff like this) my mother told me to just ignore the idiots. My father then followed up with if they touch you or hit you in any way you have permission to kick their asses and do it so well they remember not to F**K with you. Bottom line it worked and through life I’ve remembered this great advice
Hank31
Why were you constantly harassed?
Cam
Except that isn’t what happened here, it was done in secret and she did fight back, she posted and exposed them.
SamB
Fake.
darkanser
The writer wouldn’t know why ANYONE would believe CNN, MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, yada, yada…See a pattern here? Gee, I wonder what media outlets are left for me to remain “informed”?
Brian
“Joe The Rapist” is the weirdest part about this. He hasn’t been accused of rape — not even on the fringiest Q webpages. Meanwhile, it’s clear that Donald Trump has sexually assaulted multiple women (and he himself admits this).
Just goes to show that there are voters who won’t base their judgments in fact. Instead of focusing on real events (and Joe Biden isn’t perfect, so there are real criticisms one could make) these people are more interested in whatever nonsense swirls in their mind only.
cuteguy
All the deplorables watching Faux News and OAN are all full of hate and are able to vote in their kind, like Majorie Taylor Biggot, Matt Gaetz aka Florida’s Jeffrey Epstein, Lauren Boobert, Ron Deathsantis and of course their king Donald Chump. Hilary was right about that basket.