A happy update:

Hello,

Thanks so much for posting my message, I found who I was looking for! Sorry about the layout of the message, I'd never emailed a newspaper before and I thought you would only publish the parts relevant to finding them :p the irony is I'm actually an English literature graduate but I never really use paragraphs in casual emails lol!

Thanks once again I really appreciate what you have done,

Michelle

So thanks, Slog! (I let Michelle know that I was just joking with the header, and that editing costs extra, payable in the form of baked goods.)

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Without further ado:

Subject: a refreshing account of an act of kindness from one human to another, when most news is bad news!

Hi there,

I was wondering if you could help me with something. My name is Michelle Gallagher, I am from Scotland and I was working in California in the summer of 2009 when a lovely couple whom I had never met before, came into my workplace in the Northstar resort of Lake Tahoe, and out of the blue, after just ten minutes of conversation, and asking for nothing in return, invited me to visit them at their home in Medina, Washington at some point in my trip, so that I could experience the beauty of their city as I would probably never have seen it otherwise. I am pretty sure this area they said was six miles away from the home of Bill Gates, whose daughter the lady used to teach at elementary school. Their names were Pam and Chris Espinoza (or at least I am pretty sure that is their second name!). On the way home from our summer work experience, my friend and I decided to do something wild, and take them up on their offer and we called them and arranged to stay with them and honestly they treated us like royalty, but on the way home we both lost their card which contained their email addresses, I don't know how but we did and we have felt terrible about this ever since...

...I am wondering if you could possibly put out a message to them in your newspaper to let them know we have often thought about them and are wondering how their son's baby is doing, as his wife was due to go into labour in the few days after we left to go home. I feel awful that they may think that after them picking us up from the airport, taking us into their lovely home, buying us lunch and helping us with our lost luggage situation, that we just went home and never bothered to email them again, when this is not the case. The couple were two of the nicest people we have ever met, and i have tried to search their names on google and facebook to no avail, even tried checking the name of the school Chris taught at but because it is Bill Gates' daughter's school the name was not disclosed anywhere online. I hope that with the description I have given that you may do something fantastic for us and publish this message to them and let them know we are still so eternally grateful for their hospitality and kindness, and that we got home safely! My email address is [redacted; we will forward your help/verbosity, however, email us] if there is a way you can ask them to send me an email and let me know how they are doing, as this would be amazing and I would be so grateful. I hope that you may email me back at some stage and let me know if this will happen or if there is anything you can do, even if I have to pay to have this message published I will, I just hope I can get back in touch with them after the few years that have passed to let them know that what they did for us was so selfless and cool. If this message gets published I hope that readers will feel refreshed about the fact that in a world where many people are unspeakably thoughtless, selfish and even cruel towards others, there do exist lovely people who go out of their way to be nice to you, are instantly so trusting of you even although they hardly know you, and who love their city so much that they can surprise you by giving you a lovely experience which you never expected would happen in any other situation. These two are very special people who said that once another couple asked them to visit them at their home in the same way, and they did it! In just the same way as i did, and that they had such a great time and are so glad that they did it, that they wanted to pay the favour forward for someone else, doing something extremely extremely cool and kind for my friend and I, at such a vulnerable time when they were expecting a call any minute to say their their grandchild was being delivered. I have told many people this story and I always get the same amused and positive response from them, about this couple who simply did a good turn for someone else who would always treasure the memory, and who is so sorry it has taken this long to get in touch! I am sending this email to all of the newspapers in Seattle in the hopes that they or someone they know, sees my message, as I have officially ran out of ideas on how to contact them and so this may be my last chance.

Yours sincerely,
Michelle Gallagher

Subject: typo, the names were chris and pat!

sorry the names were chris and pat, not pam, please excuse!

Michelle Gallagher