Friday, June 26, 2009

Pay It Forward Fridays

On one of the blogs I follow I noticed they had a pay it forward day every week. The blogger made a point to do a random act of kindness on that day and challenged the readers to do the same. I thought this was a fantastic idea and decided to do the same for my blog. I have been on the receiving end of many acts of kindness. You never know how much a simple thing can really help someone out or brighten their day. I can be stressed and running late and a simple thing like someone offering to let me make my purchase before them because I only have one item can totally change my mood. I cannot count how many times people have handed me money that I dropped on the floor or chased me out of a store with my sunglasses that I left on the counter. I would have been literally crying when I got home and realized that I had lost my glasses.

I always try to help older people unload their groceries and have never thought anything of it. One day I helped a woman a disabled woman unload her little cart. She got tears in her eyes and profusely thanked me. I was a little taken aback. I was just standing there anyway. It took very little effort for me to help her. She explained to me how much she hates going shopping and is always embarrassed to ask for help when unloading her cart. I wondered why is she having to ask?

A few weeks later my grandmother told me about her experience at Safeway. My grandmother has really bad arthritis and due to a stroke sometimes her hands don't do what she tells them. She usually goes to Nob Hill because the checker unloads the cart, but that day she went to Safeway. She was having such a hard time unloading the cart and the people in line behind her were getting frustrated because she was taking so long. She was so embarrassed and kept apologizing for taking so long and left the store in tears. This infuriated me. Why didn't anyone help her? Why didn't the checker offer to help her when she apologized for taking so long to unload the cart?

I thought about this for the entire day after she told me the story. We can get so caught up in the chaos of our day that we don't see the people around us. We are all so busy and most of us don't have the time or resources to save the world. We can, however, do a random act of kindness at least once a week. You never know how much it will be appreciated by the person on the receiving end. It can be something big or small. Hold the door open, make a meal for a friend that is sick or just had a baby, let someone cut in line, take your granny to lunch, just do something nice for somebody.

I decided to choose Friday's as my pay it forward day. One because pay it forward Friday's flows well and two everyone is usually in a good mood on Fridays :)

Feel free to post a comment about what you did nice for someone today.

My pay it forward for the week:
My friend Candy's sister suffered an awful tragedy last week. Her baby girl died at birth. Losing a child is the worst pain one can experience and unfortunately there are many costs associated with it as well. When Marco and I dealt with this issue we experienced such overwhelming generosity from people we had never even met. Everyone scared us so much about how much burial expenses were going to be. We didn't know what we were going to do. I had been on bed rest for three months so Marco's salary was our only income. They must have felt sorry for us or something because when I called the funeral home and cemetery to make arrangements both offered their services for free. The funeral home donated their services and the casket and only charged us the fee for filing the death certificate. The cemetery donated the plot. I cannot express how helpful this was. It was such a huge weight off of our shoulders that were already so burdened with grief. The least I can do is try to pay it forward in someoneelse's time of need.

Candy is holding a yard sale and the proceeds will go towards Baby Belen's final expenses. I am not able to donate any funds at this time, but when Tarynn wakes up from her nap i am going to head over to some shopping. If you have any time available stop by the sale you may find some hidden treasures and remember it's totally green to by previously owned items ;)

610 Argonne Ave.
Hollister, CA 95023

3 comments:

  1. great blog! would love to add one another as followers! let me know if you would like to:) just out here in blog world trying to network with other creative spirits:)

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  2. thanks girl! i am following you too!:)

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