The Blue Bag
Hope needs to be given and received in pieces small enough to hold.
The Blue Bag is not one gift. It is thirty.
Thirty small, inexpensive, wrapped things — tucked into a denim bag with a simple instruction:
open one whenever you are sad, lonely, or blue, and know that someone is thinking of you.
It sounds almost too simple to matter.
It is the thing that has mattered most.
I did not invent the Blue Bag.
A friend gave me the first one during my own cancer treatment.
She handed it to me without much ceremony — just a denim bag, thirty small wrapped things inside, and a short note.
I did not know what to do with it at first. I was not used to receiving love in this form. I was used to giving it.
But over the hardest weeks of treatment, I reached into that bag again and again.
On the bad mornings. On the long afternoons. In the 2 AM hours when fear was loud.
I would pull out one small wrapped thing and unwrap it slowly, and for a moment, someone was with me.
It was never really about what was inside.
It was thirty specific moments of being thought of, distributed across the hardest season of my life.
After treatment, my family and I started making Blue Bags for other people.
A woman in chemotherapy. A friend after a miscarriage. A coworker facing surgery.
A child whose mother was sick. A young woman with terminal cancer.
The tradition has not stopped since.
Because once you have opened a Blue Bag yourself,
once you have felt what thirty small wrapped reminders of love can do in the hardest season of your life,
you want to give that to someone else. You cannot help it.
The Blue Bag is contagious that way.
It is love that multiplies because it was first received.
A Story
Of all the Blue Bags my family has made in the years since we received our first one,
there is one story that I come back to more than any of the others.
A few years ago, we made a Blue Bag for a young woman.
She was twenty-four years old, facing terminal cancer.
Her friend carried it to her and placed it beside her.
The young woman opened the first gift. And then the second. And then started to reach for a third.
Her friend gently reminded her: "The note says to open one whenever you're sad, lonely, or blue."
The young woman looked up and said, "I'm dying of cancer. I don't think the rules apply to me."
And the two of them opened every gift.
Together.
They laughed.
They cried.
They laughed some more.
When her friend got up to leave, the young woman said:
"Thank you. That was more fun than Christmas."
I think about that afternoon often. About her. About her friend.
About what happened in that room.
The Blue Bag is not about rules.
It is about permission — to receive, to laugh, to cry, to open every gift at once if that is what a particular day asks for.
The thirty items are the occasion.
The love is what is actually being unwrapped.
How a Blue Bag Works
A Blue Bag is filled with thirty small wrapped gifts.
Each gift is inexpensive — usually $2-5 each.
Nothing inside needs to be grand. Nothing needs to be explained.
Every gift is simply wrapped, tossed into the bag, and given with a short note.
The note is always the same:
"Whenever you are sad, lonely, or blue — open a gift, and know that someone is thinking of you."
That is the whole instruction. No ceremony. No order. No pressure to open them a certain way.
The recipient keeps the bag where she will see it — by the bed, on the kitchen counter, in the living room.
She opens gifts when she feels like opening gifts.
Some people open one a day. Some people open them sparingly over months.
Some people, as you have just read, open them all at once and make a whole afternoon of it.
All of those are right.
The Bag Itself
Hope Lives Now Blue Bag (Coming Soon)
The original Blue Bag is a denim drawstring bag with the Hope Lives Now logo — sturdy enough to hold thirty small gifts, simple enough to sit on a nightstand without asking for attention. We are working on making these available for direct purchase through the shop.
Sign up to be notified when the Hope Lives Now Blue Bag is available → [Flodesk form or Substack subscribe link]
Until then: Any blue drawstring bag, canvas tote, or gift bag will work. The color is not sacred — the practice is. Use what you have. Use what you can find. The bag is the container; the thirty small things inside are the gift.
The 30 Items — Structure and Examples
Thirty items sounds like a lot until you start shopping, and then it feels like not enough. Here is how I think about it.
The best Blue Bags mix categories so that opening one gift feels different from the last. Small treats, pretty things, silly things, useful things, encouraging things. Variety is the whole point. You are not building a themed gift basket — you are building thirty separate small surprises that will be unwrapped across weeks or months, and each one should feel like its own tiny moment.
I aim for roughly this mix of 30:
6-8 small treats (candy, specialty snacks, tea bags, hot cocoa packets)
5-6 pretty things (stickers, washi tape, pretty notepads, a small candle)
5-6 silly things (googly eyes, a rubber duck, a tiny toy, something absurd)
5-6 useful things (chapstick, socks, hand lotion, a nice pen)
4-6 encouraging things (scripture cards, a small note, a bookmark with a verse)
Mix them up in the bag. Do not group them. Randomness is the feature.
Sample Items to Anchor Your Shopping
These are the kinds of items I reach for when building a Blue Bag. Use them as a starting point.
The other 15-20 items are up to you — based on what she loves, what makes her laugh, what the season she is in seems to ask for.
Small Treats
Specialty Hot Cocoa Packet
A single packet, wrapped. The kind she would not buy for herself. Small luxuries unwrap well.
Pretty Things
Her Favorite Candy, Travel Size
A fun-size bag of her favorite. Not a big bag. A small one. The smallness is part of the delight.
No link needed — this one is for you to choose.
A Tiny Candle (tealight or votive)
Unscented or very lightly scented. Small enough to burn through in one evening.
Herbal Tea Sampler Pack
Individually wrapped tea bags are perfect for Blue Bags. One per gift.
A Small Sticker Sheet or Pack
Pipsticks, pretty florals, a little pack of washi tape — small, bright, unnecessary.
Silk Pillowcase
Gentle on the scalp during hair loss and after. Small comfort that matters more than it sounds.
Quiet Company
The things that fill the long hours of treatment and recovery.
Cancer treatment comes with a particular kind of time. The waiting-for-labs time. The chemo-chair time. The couch-on-a-bad-day time. What fills those hours matters — not because it will fix anything, but because it gives the mind somewhere to rest when the body is too tired to do much. These are the items I reach for when I want to say, without saying it: you do not have to entertain anyone. Just be here, with something gentle to hold.
A Journal
A journal worth keeping. Good paper, soft cover, room for the thoughts she cannot say aloud.
A Devotional
Devotions for days when hope feels far away and scripture needs to be small and steady.
A Book of Poems
Short readings for the mornings she cannot face anything long. Put it on the nightstand.
A Book
Fiction with short chapters — easy to pick up between chemo naps and put down again.
A Puzzle Book
Surprisingly beloved during chemo when the body is still but the mind wants to move.
An Adult Coloring Book
An adult coloring book and good pencils. For the afternoons when even reading is too much.
A Simple Game
A deck of cards for her and whoever is sitting with her. Small movement. Small joy.
Spark & Lightness
The small things that make her smile in the middle of it.
Most people stop at comfort and faith when they build a care package — they forget that a woman in cancer treatment still has a sense of humor, still has favorites, still has a self underneath the diagnosis. The Spark items are the ones that say I see who you are, not just what you are walking through. Nothing here is heavy. Nothing here is trying to fix anything. These are just the small, unnecessary, slightly silly inclusions that remind her she is still herself — and that somebody knows it.
Favorite Snacks
The small act of remembering what she loves is the whole point. Tuck in three. No substitutions.
No link needed — this one is for you to choose.
Specialty Hot Cocoa, Cider, or Tea
Something fancier than she would buy for herself. Sipping slowly is an activity when nothing else feels doable.
Something Silly
Fake birds. Googly eyes. A rubber duck. An absurd little thing that belongs to no category and exists only to make her laugh. Include one. You will be glad you did.
Pretty Stationery
Stickers, Washi Tape, or Pretty Stationery Not practical. Not meaningful. Just pretty — which is sometimes what a hard day needs most.
A Gift Card to Somewhere
She Loves
Her coffee shop, her bookstore, her favorite local spot. The gift of a good afternoon waiting for a better day.
No link needed — this one is for you to choose.
Pen That Is a Pleasure
to Write With
For journaling, to-do lists, or small notes to herself. Nothing fancy required — just something that feels good in the hand.
A Small Bouquet or Tiny Succulent
Living beauty that does not ask anything of her. Dried flowers are lovely too — they last, and they do not need water on the days she cannot remember to give any.
The Heart of It — Faith & Hope
The items that quietly carry the deepest purpose of the basket.
Every Hope Basket I have ever assembled has a spiritual center — one or two items that are not about comfort or distraction but about reminding the recipient that she is seen by something larger than her circumstances. These items are never the flashiest. They are often the smallest. But they are, in a quiet way, the whole point. The basket is a vessel. These are what it carries.
Prayer Cards
From Hope Lives Now. A verse printed with care, on good paper, for the wall, the mirror, or the nightstand.
Prayer Shawl
From Hope Lives Now. A prayer-infused shawl for the chemo chair, the hospital bed, or the quiet afternoon on the couch.
Coming Soon!
A Small Keepsake
Something small and tactile — a wooden cross, a polished stone, a keepsake she can keep in a pocket or by the bed.
A Willow Tree Angel of Hope
A Willow Tree figure. Small, simple, present. A visible reminder that hope is being held for her.
ESV Compact Bible
A comfort-sized Bible, clearly printed and gently bound. For the woman who does not have one or whose other Bible feels too heavy right now.
Faces of Cancer
Coming in October 2026,
my book for women walking through cancer. Sign up for pre-order updates.
The one item in every basket that is not on this list: a handwritten note. Keep it short. Keep it true. This will be the item she keeps longest.
One important piece of advice
Know the person.
If she is a Minnesota Wild Fan, include something in green (or hockey-related).
If she loves birds, include a bird-watching book.
If her favorite drink is a particular brand of sparkling juice, tuck three cans into the basket.
The basket is more than the sum of its contents.
What makes it hers is that it has been shaped specifically around her.
A generic basket says somebody cares.
A personal basket says you specifically are known and loved.
The second one carries more weight than the first — especially in a season
when so much of what is happening feels generic and cold and full of waiting rooms.
What to write in the note
Every basket deserves a short note.
Keep it simple. Do not write a whole letter.
Something like:
I love you.
I am thinking of you every day.
This basket is full of small things that I hope make one afternoon a little easier.
You do not have to read any of it.
You do not have to be anything but exactly who you are right now.
I am here.
Sign your name. Leave it unsealed.
Let her see it when she first opens the basket.
If assembling a basket feels like more than you can do
Some of you reading this will want to build a basket and cannot, because you live far away,
because you do not have the time, because the grief is too heavy to gather items right now.
If that is where you are, you have three good options:
Send one thoughtful item with a meaningful note. One candle, one book, one soft blanket,
one handwritten card. Any one of the things on this list is a complete gift on its own.Reach Out To Us— in limited situations, I build Hope Baskets directly for families I can reach. Reach out.
Send a written note with a gift card tucked inside — for a meal delivery service,
a bookstore, or a coffee shop she loves. That is not a lesser gift. Sometimes it is the most useful one of all.
Building a Hope Basket is one of the most specific ways
I know to say I am with you when words are not enough.
It is a small thing. A deliberate thing.
A thing that requires a few hours and a trip to a few stores and the willingness to stand in a pharmacy aisle
for twenty minutes trying to decide between two kinds of lip balm.
It is not a solution. It is not a cure. It is not, in the end, what matters most.
What matters most is that somebody, somewhere, loves her enough to do this.
And from one woman who has opened a basket assembled for her in the hardest season of her life:
It mattered. Every item in it mattered. Even the fake birds.
Somebody thought of me. Somebody cared.
Looking for a companion gift for a child, sibling, or caregiver walking through this alongside her? See the Blue Bag →
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