Sticky Notes

"To love someone isn't to approve of their behavior or even to feel close to them. It is to keep the light on in a room they may never enter again."
My book Sticky Notes: But the Greatest of These is Love is now available — and the audio was filmed right here at the UK Markey Cancer Center, where I have been receiving treatment for severe aplastic anemia.
The book is about a practice I started in 2021: placing invisible "LOVE" sticky notes on the foreheads of people who hurt me. It changed everything.
Foreword by Dr. Connie Jennings, MD — Integrative Medicine, University of Kentucky.
Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Walmart. Scan the QR code in the video or visit DenaSullivan.com
https://youtube.com/shorts/8wXtWsUrd1I?feature=share

Sticky Notes: But the Greatest of These is Love — Official Book Trailer | Dena Sullivan "Every silent act of love — even one scribbled on an imaginary stic...

You know what I find frustrating, but valuable? There's a great becoming in your future — but you have to live through the tough parts first. The kintsugi. The breaking. The gold only shows up where the cracks were.
Kintsugi — the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by filling the cracks with gold. The mended object becomes more beautiful than the original. Not despite the damage. Because of it.

Foreword to Sticky Notes by Dr. Connie Jennings
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched—they must be felt with the heart. Helen Keller
Foreword
There is something in Dena’s story that speaks to each of us, because at its heart it is a story of the human condition. It is a story she gently reshaped with invisible sticky notes carrying a single message—love—placed on the foreheads of those she loved, tried to love, chose to love, feared to love, and continued to love. The constancy of hope, the bond of family, and the enduring power of love are the universal threads that hold each of us within the intricate tangle of life.
Clinical medicine is often measured in rigid metrics. These measures have value, but after several decades of practice, I am convinced that the most meaningful part of medicine involves a science that defies measurement. When integrative medicine, music, and art are woven into the fabric of healthcare, we begin to understand a deeper truth: not all maladies can be cured, but healing is always possible.
Through trust, acceptance, and hope, Dena’s story gives clinicians permission to recognize and honor patients’ unseen experiences of healing. As a physician who champions integrative medicine, I have witnessed how the spirit can lead where the body falters.
Dena’s methodology—a silent “love” note placed in the mind’s eye—is more than a spiritual exercise. It is a way of retuning the transceiver of the human heart. Her quiet art of the invisible sticky note reveals the power of positive intention, the strength of collective consciousness, and the subtle yet undeniable force that flows between healer and healed. Like the roots of forest trees, we are connected beneath the surface in a living web that has no single weaver.
For those living with long illness, this book becomes a vital field guide—especially in those moments when even the silence of prayer can feel like abandonment. The sticky note method may be the bridge we have been missing between our moments of loss and our lifelong capacity for connection.
In its quiet simplicity, the story of the sticky note reminds us of something both ancient and enduring: love still makes new roads where none seemed possible.
After almost forty years at the bedside, I have learned this: healing begins wherever love is allowed to enter the room.
Connie Jennings, MD
Integrative Medicine
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
March 2026

You can purchase Sticky Notes on the following web sites.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2JW4Y8X

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sticky-Notes-But-the-Greatest-of-These-is-Love-Paperback-9798902518945/20253515724

https://www.yes24.com/product/goods/189865272

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sticky-notes-dena-sullivan/1150229123?ean=9798902518945

Sticky Notes: But the Greatest of These is Love Sticky Notes: But the Greatest of These is Love

Here's a quote from Stick Notes: But the Greatest of These is Love.

"Grace, I’ve learned, is a strange kind of glue. It doesn’t erase what’s been shattered, but it gives you holy hands to pick up the pieces."

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2JW4Y8X

Well, Jim's favorite toy has been sold. We had a bidding war over it.
I asked God to ask Jim to pick the person he wants to own it. The young lady from Ohio said she really wanted this exact car. Her father promised to buy her a blue 65 Beetle. Shortly after the promise, he passed away.
My opinion is that Jim picked someone who really wanted it and had access to a mechanic. The gentleman who drove the flatbed to my house is a mechanic. I didn't ask but the way they talked they both lived in the same house.
The last time I tried to start the car it would not start. My neighbor said it would probably start if I put gas in it. Apparently, gas evaporates. Also I couldn't get the wheels to roll.
That little cutie of a bug rolled right out of the garage. I asked Casper, how did he get the wheels to move. She said all he dod was put it in neutral. Gheesh, I'm not a car person but I didn't think about it not having gas and I tried to put it in neutral about 6 years ago.
Well, this coming August 20th, Jim will have been gone 8 years.
It was hard watching it roll away. All the memories we had together in it. But it's going to a good home where it will be loved and used. Not sitting in a dark garage.
Bonnie voyage!

Well, I have a story to tell about Jim and I. I have played the oboe and English horn for the Lexington Community Orchestra (LCO) since around 1990/91. When we were first married, one of the first orchestra concerts Jim attended in 1999 was where we played Dvorak Symphony #9, The New World. I, of course, played the second oboe part which uses the oboe and the English horn. If you are familiar with this piece, the 2nd movement has the most beautiful melody I've ever heard.
Some history - One of Dvorak's students, William Arms Fisher, put words to the longing melody from the second movement. He called the new song, "Goin' Home," and had it published 1922.
Here are the lyrics:

Going home, going home
I'm just going home
Quiet light, some still day
I'm just going home

It's not far, just close by
Through an open door
Work all done, care laid by
Going to fear no more

Mother's there expecting me
Father's waiting, too
Lots of folk gathered there
All the friends I knew

All the friends I knew
I'm going home
Nothing's lost, all's gain
No more fret nor pain
No more stumbling on the way
No more longing for the day
Going to roam no more

Morning star lights the way
Restless dream all done
Shadows gone, break of day
Real life begun

There's no break, there's no end
Just a living on
Wide awake with a smile
Going on and on

Going home, going home
I'm just going home
It's not far, just close by
Through an open door
I am going home
I'm just going home

Going home, going home
[Repeat]
___________
Jim loved the piece and we spoke of it quite fondly every now and then. I lost my grandmother, Nana (Laura Bell Sullivan) that same year and I dedicated that performance to her... When I was picking out Jim's coffin, I was clueless. Who thinks about doing that? Then I just happened by a baby blue metalic one with chrome bumpers. Reminded me of the 1965 beetle I bought him as a gift years before. He would tell me the beetle is his grand piano. So, as I was checking it out I looked at its name; Going Home. I about fell over. I said, "that's it".
So, I'll try and end this long story, I've been very ill with a life threatening illness for over a year now. LCO started up it's season this fall and I got permission from my doctor to play for this falls concert, December 4th, 3 PM at Bryan Station High School. Free admission. My doctor said he going to come.
Guess what we're playing? Dvorak's New World Symphony. Guess who's playing the english horn solo? 🤪 Yours truly. This really means the world to me.
Here's a link to just that movement.

Dvořák Symphony No 9 "New World" 2nd movement Celibidache, Münchner Philharmoniker, 1991 Antonin Dvořák, Symohony No. 9 in E minor op. 95 "From The New World", 2nd movment, Largo, with the Münchner Philharmoniker conducted by Sergiu Celibidache,...