Not gonna
lie, I am finding it difficult to see the kindness in the world lately. There is SO MUCH negativity, so much anger,
so much destruction, so much snarkiness.
All of that can be blinding, at least for people who wear their hearts
on their sleeves like me.
So today I am
writing a Kindness Activist piece in the hopes that by sitting down and
putting my thoughts on "paper" I will be more able to see the KINDNESS
that I know is still out there (just hiding from my view).
My cousin
Brenda* is one of the kindest people on the planet and often uses her social
media to spread information about causes – dogs that are missing, children that
are sick, veterans that need help. Last
month she posted something about a statue being stolen from a grave site in
Omaha. And if that isn’t sad enough, it
was taken from a CHILD’S GRAVE. It hurt
my heart to think about what that poor family must have thought – they showed
up at the grave site for Mother’s Day to find the statue for their little boy
was gone. What kind of mean person does
that??
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| Brayden's grave, with the sweet baseball boy statue before it was stolen |
The post had
a link to the story on a local news channel: Local News Story Link
I watched the
clip of the story and decided to see if there might be a way to help. I had a photo of the statue, so I searched
online to find a store that might have the same one. It turned out that Nagel’s Landscaping in St.
Paul, Minnesota had it! I called and
they said they could ship it for us. Of
course, it was not a light item to ship, so not cheap.
 |
| Replacement located! Now how to buy it.... |
I couldn’t
really afford to pay for the statue and shipping myself, so I reached out to
friends on social media and in a Facebook group about Kindness. Before I knew it, we had enough to cover
everything! A complete stranger in the FB
group gave a large donation (THANK YOU so much Donna!) and between 7 others we
got it all covered.
Before I could
get all of that organized, someone else had gone to the cemetery and replaced
the statue with a different one, not quite the same as the one that had been
stolen. Apparently, they cemented it
down so that no one could take it (alas, that also means it can’t be replaced
with the exact same one that used to be there…). We decided that even though the grave site now
had a new statue, the family might still be happy to get one that looked the
SAME as the one that used to be there.
 |
| Replacement ball player, arrived in Nebraska safely! |
So, I called
the company in Minnesota and they shipped it to my cousin in Nebraska. She then delivered it to the family, who were
overjoyed to get it. Brenda reported
that the mom and her sister cried and hugged her (which is good, as Brenda is
an excellent hugger). The word is that
if I get to meet the family the next time I go to Omaha I am scheduled for a
hug, too!
The new
statue now lives in the family’s garden, where it is a safe and a daily
reminder of their little angel.
 |
| Facebook message from the family |
This story is
a good reminder, to me at least, that even when it feels like the world is full
of sadness, if you look hard enough you will see a ray of kindness peeking
through.
Be kind. Please.
 |
| Thank you note and a photo of the beautiful baby |
* Here is another Kindness Activist piece featuring my cousin Brenda that I wrote early on in this project. Like I said, she is super duper kind, and is deserving of many feature articles about her! 83 Pairs of Kindness
