I visited Washington D.C. last week to represent Date-Line at America’s Small Business Summit where we were honored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as one of 100 Blue Ribbon small businesses. Accepting our Blue Ribbon certificate (it’s not actually a ribbon at all) was great, but the coolest part of this trip was that I was able to squeeze in a visit with Bridget Frazier, a former employee who lives nearby.

As many of you know, Bridget had a very complicated (and still incomplete) recovery after giving birth to beautiful twin girls in January and in April she wisely chose to move back to Virginia to be near a support network of family.

Bridget was an employee at Date-Line for more than 3 years and was a favorite of many customers. We loved having her as part of our little family and it’s already strange to think about the 4,000 miles between us.

We consider ourselves fortunate to have spent 3+ years with such a wonderful young woman and we wish her the very best as she continues to recuperate while caring for her children. We are happy that she will have the help and comfort of her biological family during this time and we are equally happy that we got to be her “other” family while she was here.

Bridget had a few remarks she wanted me to share:

When I started at Date-Line Digital Printing in the summer of 2010 I was a young kid just out of my freshman year of college, not knowing where or what I wanted to do in life. Over the course of the past few years the people I have worked with have surrounded me with love and encouragement and helped me become an adult. Unfortunately, growing up means being faced with difficult decisions and one of the hardest I have made was to leave my Date-Line family to start the next chapter of my life with my husband and our two newborn daughters.

The people at Date-Line, not just my co-workers but the customers as well, have made their way into my heart and treated me like family. We have gone through some of the most joyous times, and some of the saddest times together, but we made it through. I know that even though I am moving on in life, my Date-Line family will always be there for me no matter how far away I am.

She’s right about that. Once you’re one of us, you’re always one of us.

If you would like to leave a message for Bridget in the comments below, we will make sure she sees it.