5 1/2 Year Old Kindness

 I thought about waiting to share this story until after the entire acts of kindness related to it are finished, but I am excited to tell you about it, and I also like to write when things are still fresh in my memory.  So here is a quick update on…

 JUNE BUG’S KINDNESS HOT COCOA STAND!

If you follow Kindness Activist you will remember that recently a sweet little girl named June Bug hosted a hot cocoa stand to raise money for us!  In a short 2.5 hours, this little dynamo raised $1118.75 – all to be used to spread kindness!!!  (Note – that number is slightly higher than what was previously shared as a couple of donations for cocoa came in after the fact).

Since the cocoa stand was HER idea and since she put so much effort into it, of course my little friend is involved in deciding how the money will be used.  She and her mamma came over one evening to brainstorm ideas of how she would like to spread kindness.  Here are some of the things that she came up with:

-         Give gifts to the teachers and staff at her former pre-school (shhh, don’t tell them because this is still in the works, but “lip chap” is one of her ideas to treat them…)

-         Buy gifts for sick kids at Children’s National Hospital (where her mom was a nurse, and where she has been a patient)

-         Buy things for a classroom (we have chosen a local classroom that has 4 students, all with autism)

-         Pay for people’s meals at an iconic local restaurant – Weenie Beenie (I suspect that she wants to do this one because she wants to eat at Weenie Beenie…)

So, with those ideas to get us started, I picked June Bug up this weekend and we went shopping!

First stop – the grocery store to buy SNACKS for the classroom.  We had some ideas of what the students like (and allergies) from talking with the teacher, so June Bug picked out some terrific items.  She got juices, popcorn, tasty cereal bars, and goldfish crackers.  She even picked out some very special juice bottles with characters on top (we agreed that the students will love them!).

Treats for a classroom

Then off to Target.  But before we could even go inside, we saw something we needed to check out – a young woman selling painted rocks.  They were beautiful!  We talked to the artist and her mother, and it turned out that the woman was Deaf and was selling her artwork because her hearing aid had broken and she needs a new one.  Insurance won’t cover it, so she is raising money to purchase it.

The artist and the activist

It was hard to choose what to buy (there were so many pretty ones!) but June Bug picked a piece of watermelon rock and a rainbow with a cloud rock.  Fun!  We talked about who those would be for and she thought she may give one to her “Sister Cousin” and keep one for herself.  Later that plan changed to give both to her cousins.  So sweet.

Once inside Target, we started in the BOOK section, because books were on her list of things that kids in the hospital needed.  She very deliberately looked for and chose books that she has at home, as she knows those.  “Oh, this is a good one!!!  Let me show you Kindness Susan!” she told me as she turned page after page of a book about a fish.  We ended up with a few books, one nice sticker book (which she has at home, too), 3 coloring books, and crayons to go with those. 

We grabbed some sensory toys for the classroom and the markers that the teacher had requested, then ON TO THE TOY DEPARTMENT!

I feared this part might be difficult.  I mean, June Bug is 5 years old (5 ½ if you ask her)…  Imagine shopping up and down the toy aisles looking only for things for other people and not yourself at that age…

But she was great!  We had written down some ideas of what she thought children at the hospital would want, so we started with one of those: a doll (how to choose?  But she did!).  Then another thing on her list: a stuffy.  She went for a chocolate brown teddy bear, one of the softest I have ever felt.  She decided it would be ok for her to snuggle that in the store and the car on the way home, and I agreed.  She also chose a game, some cool balls, some small wooden train cars, and I talked her into a little lap art desk set and a Rubik’s cube (“For the older kids, June Bug!” I told her.)  I talked her OUT of a musical piano and a MICROPHONE (“June Bug, I am not so sure the nurses would like the children to have those…  Don’t you think they would be a bit, oh, I don’t know, NOISY for a hospital???”)

She added some “lip chap” for the sick children, then our cart was quite full and we thought we were done.  But I remembered the ROCKS.  “June Bug, would you maybe like to give the rocks to people HERE at the store?” I asked her.  She smiled her great big smile and her eyes twinkled.  “Yes, Kindness Susan!!”.  She loved the idea. 

But who to give them to… 

I saw a woman in a wheelchair looking at some shoes.  I pointed her out and asked if perhaps she would be a good rock recipient.  June Bug thought she would, so we approached.  I told her before we got to the woman that she needed to speak up nice and loud, and she did.  She explained we had a very pretty rock that we would like to give her, and handed the watermelon rock to the woman. 

The woman was so happy!  “Oh my goodness, I COLLECT ROCKS!” she told us.  “And this one is beautiful!!”  June Bug and I were both so pleased that we had chosen her to give the rock to.   I am not sure which made the woman happier – getting to talk to a delightful young girl, or adding a pretty rock to her collection.  Either way, June Bug’s gift made her day.

For the 2^nd rock we hunted down someone working in the store.  June Bug decided it should go to someone working hard, and we found the right person: a woman putting the carts and baskets away.  She, too, was delighted to get a gift from a young Kindness Activist.  She asked June Bug her name and shared hers – CiCi.  She was very thankful (and I am quite sure that rock created a kindness ripple was spread throughout the store after we left when CiCi told all of her co-workers what had happened).

June Bug was in charge of checking everything out at the self-check (sorry Target guy, she didn’t mean to ring up those items twice and make you come over and assist us not one time but two…). 

Some of June Bug's excellent purchases

After I dropped my little friend back at her house, I thought about the “coincidences” that had happened that afternoon.  We noticed a person selling rocks outside Target (which I have never seen before).  We stopped to chat.  The person was Deaf, and I am a sign language interpreter so could communicate easily with her.  We could donate to help fund her new hearing aid.  And out of everyone in the store, we happened to choose a woman who COLLECTS ROCKS to gift one to.

But really, I don’t think those things are coincidences.  I love when things like that happen.  I honestly believe that they happen to all of us, and much more often than we know.  If we open our eyes and our hearts and pay attention to the world around us, we notice them.  Try it!

My friend and I still have much more to do – we need to deliver the gifts we have purchased, get the teacher gifts prepared, go to Weenie Beenie…

I am looking forward to it!  Spending time with young, KIND kids is inspiring.  Kids get it.  They are great role models.

Kindness Activist funds spent:

Snacks and toys for the classroom: $63.71

Rocks: $30 (we paid more than the asking price, and purchased 2 more as we were leaving the store)

Things for sick kids at the hospital: $191.99

Getting to spend the afternoon seeing kindness through the eyes of a child: priceless.

Look Up

Life lessons sometimes come in tiny pieces.

Today I learned – don’t look down, look UP.

The past couple of days I have been sad, really missing my sissy Annette.  My other sister, Sherry, and I really felt like we got a couple of “messages from the great beyond” from Annette when Sher and I were together recently in DC.  But after Sherry went back home, I felt alone.  No sisters, no messages. 

So, I decided that there HAD to be a message, I was just MISSING it.  The universe didn’t want me to be sad, I reasoned, I just need to FIND THE MESSAGE.  And (because I am apparently the controller of all things coming from the great beyond…) I decided that the message would be in the form of a painted rock. 

So, I walked around for a few days with my head down – looking at rocks.  I turned rocks over (“Surely the OTHER side is painted!” I would think.  Then flip the rock.  Only to be disappointed twice – by the same dumb rock.)  As I continued to hunt, I quickly grew frustrated.  Almost no one in my area paints and hides rocks.  “Maybe this Spring I will find her message on a rock…” I thought, then quickly counted an imaginary calendar in my brain and realized how far away Spring is.  Sigh. 

Only, you see, that’s not how messages WORK.  You can’t WILL them to appear.  You can’t wish and hope and squeeze your forehead so tight in concentration that BAM – the message is there.

Instead you have to open your heart.  Your soul.  And your EYES.

Today I spent the day playing tourist in my own city.  I had a fabulous day.  It was very warm out and I walked and walked and walked.  I treated myself to several outdoor sculpture gardens.  I breathed in the sunshine.  And I took a stroll around the Hirshhorn, a fantastic art museum in DC.  I looked at the current exhibits listed on a sign and set my sights on seeing the Marcel Duchamp work.  I don’t know why I picked that one, I have no particular affection for Duchamp.  But I moseyed around the museum looking for that exhibit. 

And right before I found what I was hunting for, I looked up to see this – a painting by Alberto Giacometti. 

My Message

I examined it.  I enjoyed it.  Then I looked at the plaque to read about it.

"Annette", by Alberto Giacometti 

The painting’s name is ANNETTE.

Annette. 

There it was – my message.  She was there.  She was smiling.  And of course, I smiled too.  And when I told my sister Sherry about my message and showed her the photos, she pointed out that not only was the painting the same NAME as our sister, it was painted the SAME YEAR OF HER BIRTH, 1961!!

I spent the rest of the day looking up.  Rocks were under my feet, and maybe I passed a message or 2 painted on them and didn’t see, who knows.  But I had gotten my message.  In fact, I got a second one when I looked up to double-check my item on a menu board and realized the café I had chosen to eat at today was called “The 3 Sisters”.

Today’s life lesson seems easy but was tough to figure out.  LOOK UP.  You can’t “will” things your way, but if your eyes are pointed the right direction, you won’t miss the messages.

Kindness Rocks

It has been over a month since I last wrote about kindness.  That feels like a big confession.  It is not that I have not done kind things during that time, and it for SURE is not that I have not witnessed kindness.  It is just that sometime I (and maybe all of us?) let “life” get in the way and get too carried away with our “to do” lists to really relax, take in, and appreciate all that is around us.

Then something slaps us in the face and gives us a big reminder that the hustle bustle, hurried life is not a FULFILLED one, and we take a step back (and a deep breath) and re-set.

So, let’s re-set, shall we?

Focus. Breathe.  Re-set.  

I want to share a story of incredible kindness with you. 

I wrote about our neighbor in Florida, Carol, in this blog a few months ago.*  She is a dear, sweet, funny, and KIND woman.  I haven’t gotten to spend as much time with her as I would like, as each time we come to Florida we fill our waking hours with home repair, remote work, swimming, and beach time, so simple things like “visit the neighbors” get overlooked. 

This summer I helped Carol clean out her laundry room.  She had a bee in her bonnet that it needed sorting, so we tackled it.  One of the things we found high up on a shelf was her collection of paints and brushes.  I didn’t know she liked to paint, so we talked about it some as we cleaned.  I told her about the popular new hobby of ROCK PAINTING.  People in many cities are now getting smooth rocks and painting beautiful scenes on them, then hiding them for strangers to find!  Isn’t that lovely?  I had been wanting to try to paint a rock, and when I found out Carol thought it sounded fun to, I put it on my mental to do list; PAINT ROCKS WITH CAROL.

Then I got distracted.  We painted the front of the house.  We went to movies.  We rode our stand-up paddleboard…  And before you knew it, our time in Florida was up and we had to drive back to DC. 

I knew Carol was sick with lung cancer, she had been for a while.  But we come to Florida every few months, and she lives right next door, so, “We can paint rocks next time I am in town,” was the excuse I gave myself.

Then we got the news from her family that the cancer had spread.  And I had crammed my calendar so full of work and travel that I could not find a way to escape to Florida.  The whole situation made me super sad.  I really, really wanted to spend time with my friend, and damn it, I wanted to paint rocks with her!

I am a member of a Facebook group of rock painters called Volusia County Rocks.  I follow their posts and am amazed by the beautiful things they paint on rocks!  They are incredible!  So, after checking with my friend’s daughter to make sure it would be alright, I made a post to the group, asking if anyone would be willing to paint a rock for my friend and deliver it to her home. 

Very quickly, messages started coming in!  It was “rockers” saying things like, “Sure!  I would love to paint a rock for your friend” and “I would be happy to take one over to her”.  My heart melted.  I couldn’t be there to sit with Carol and paint rocks, but these rockers, strangers who I have never met, were kind enough to jump in. 

I told the family to start looking outside the front door to see if anything showed up, and before long, gorgeous rocks started arriving.  Carol’s husband would bring them in to her, and they were both so pleased!!  Carol thought they were beautiful, and her husband, well, he fixated on the rocks themselves – how big and smooth they were – and surmised that they simply had to be from another state…  😊

A sea turtle!  Perfect for Florida

What a fun, happy little rock!  With a hairband! :)

A serene sea scene

We made it to town in time to see Carol.  It has been so nice to sit with her.  She has all of the rocks lined up in her “Florida room”, where she rests in a hospital bed.  Her family and hospice are taking good care of her and keeping her comfortable.  She and I looked through the rocks together, and she held one in her hand.  It made me smile to see – and made my heart sing at the thought of the KINDNESS OF STRANGERS, willing to share their art and their love with my friend.

This marbled effect is so pretty

A MERMAID!  Isn't she beautiful?

It is well.  Simply stated, and so poignant

Love you Carol.  And thank you, rockers.  Your kindness rocks.

The collection.  Kindness in the form of rocks.  

P.S. - I am not here to preach or tell you what to do, but please learn from my mistake:  make time to do the little things you want to do NOW.  Don't put them off.  

*Here is a link to the story of CAROL’S kindness, posted earlier this year:  Coke Kindness

**If you would like to get involved in painting rocks, Google and see if your area is doing it!  Many places are, and it is awesome.

***If you, like me, believe that reading/hearing about kindness is inspiring and makes you more "alert" and receptive to see it in the world, "like" Kindness Activist (this project) on Facebook.  I post stories and photos of kindness there.  

Bonus photo - sea scene with a lighthouse!