In my last post I mentioned that I was going to do 25 good deeds for my 25th birthday. My birthday isn't for 5 days, but I've gotten a head start and already completed 12 of my good deeds. I've gotten some great feed back from friends and family who know about it. The only negative I've gotten was from my grandmother who swore I was going to make myself go broke. I don't need to explain to you that you don't need an allowance to do good deeds, and in fact, if you were to do 25 good deeds it wouldn't have to cost you any amount of money. Why should it? I did spend some money on this project, but it was worth it to me. What else would I use that money on anyway? Stuff. And I have plenty of stuff as it is.
So far, there are two good deeds that stand out the most. The first was a pair of coloring books and boxes of crayons which I brought to a local children's hospital. I expected to leave it, as we say in Louisiana, au cachette, in a waiting room where children might frequent. I explained my intentions to the receptionist who happily directed me to Pediatrics. When I reached the pediatrics wing I was introduced to a woman named Janie. She explained that she was exactly who I was looking for - though she didn't give me her work title, she is in charge of helping the children patients cope with being in the hospital. This was far better than what I'd expected. Think of it, being in the hospital is scary enough for an adult. I can't imagine the misery that a child (and their parents) must go through. My two coloring books, which aren't fancy and cost about the same as a meal from McDonald's in all, will definitely make a bigger difference to someone than filling my belly with an unhealthy lunch. I really didn't expect to help someone with a bigger issue than my own in such a direct way, and with such a tiny act. You hear it all the time, that small gestures amount to big things. You hear it, but I guess you have to act on it to really believe it.
You remember how I said in my last post to help "people, animals, minerals, and spirits"? Well my 2nd favorite good deed involves spirits. I went to school with the really cool guy. He was silly, he was sweet, he was good hearted, but he was definitely all guy. We rode the school bus together for years, and we graduated high school together. He was always nice to me, while most of our class mates teased me because, well, I was shy and deeply, deeply, incurably nerdy. I only found out this year that back when we were in school together and he heard the other students joking about me behind my back, he'd defend me because "I didn't ask for it like some others and was always a lady." Well, after we finished school, I went on to college and he, like most of the local men, went on to do heavy work. I won't say this boy was perfect - he was a little bit of a trouble maker. But he knew boundaries. We'd only been out of school a few years when a terrible freak accident at work killed him. It was jarring. He was my first school friend to die. It wasn't until last year that I realized that his grave was literally down the road from my house - not even half a block, but I live in the country and, well, we can't really measure anything that way. This morning I took a walk in the windy cold to the graveyard and spoke to my friend and left him some silk yellow orchids. I don't know if he liked yellow or orchids, but I do, so I'm going to hope he'll forgive me. I asked him to keep an eye out on my and our friends, like he used to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment