As you may have guessed from my latest Scary Mommy post, there is little I love more than the kindness of strangers.
So I’m setting out to create a new category on this blog dedicated to chronicling the random acts of kindness that help you get through the day, make you feel better about humanity, or at least put a smile on your face. Small acts that have a big impact. Ways we’re making the world smaller. Maybe if we document how much of this is going on, we’ll start to notice it more, because we’ll be looking for it. Maybe we’ll even start to do it more, because we’ll be thinking about it.
I find that carting my brood around town often lends itself to opportunities for others to help me navigate through my day. But we ALL have those opportunities–both to give and receive kindness. Expecting nothing in return.
So, dear readers, tell me random acts of kindness that either a stranger or friend did for you—or that you did for someone else. Share your story in the comments section (below) or reach out to me directly via my Contact page (above). Then I will compile & share on the blog (feel free to request anonymity). Tweet about it and use the hashtags #strangerthings or #makingtheworldsmaller. Maybe this’ll take off and become a regular (weekly? monthly?) CKCT series, “Stranger Things,” or maybe it’ll be a big ol’ flop. But, like most everything, it’s worth a try! (And if nothing else, I love a good pun.)
I’ll kick us off:
- Last week, a man on the street stopped and asked me if I needed help as I unloaded items from my car to be donated to a thrift store.
- The woman behind me in line offered to let me use her Rite Aid card to get a discount on my Mr. Clean magic eraser sponges.
(See? They can be really small things.)
- Another mom offered to walk my preschooler from the parking lot in to school so I didn’t have to unbuckle and unload my two little guys, who were headed on to a joint doctor appointment.
- My neighbors, four days postpartum with their fifth child, offered to store some of our stuff or host some of our kids during house showings. (We didn’t take them up on it!)
- My incredible handyman paid a special emergency visit at no charge on the frantic morning of our first house showings when, inexplicably, the powder room door got locked from the inside !
So let’s do this. Let’s get out there, see the good, and be good to each other. …And then tell me about it 😉
Dina L. Relles 
Earlier this year we read a book in my class called A Long Walk To Water. One of the author’s messages was to do kind things for others. So I challenged my students to go out and do a good deed and ask for nothing in return other than for the kindness to be passed on. Most of the kids helped their parents out at home or held doors open. One of them did something on her own that I found truly outstanding. She wrote a note with a quote about kindness on it. Then she wrote “someone thinks that you are wonderful. Just thought you should know that you are loved.” She placed it anonymously in another student’s backpack. She didn’t even know who’s bag it was. She never told what she did. The boy found it during my class and I recognized the hand writing. I think for a seventh grade kid to come up with this on her own it truly amazing. She didn’t even tell her parents. I told them at conferences because I was so impressed with her. Thought this would fit the category you asked for nicely.
I LOVE this, Sam. What a special kid. (And a GREAT “assignment” for your students!) Thanks for sharing!!