I digress. My friends (newlyweds at mid-40's+) do not do Valentine's Day. She feels it is a made up holiday for the card, flower and candy industries (even though it started in the 1800's with just love letters and cards). While watching the sunset the other night I mistakenly asked how they were celebrating. Wow.
Last year, he had the day off from work ... and so did she. They decided to do random acts of kindness in the spirit of things. They went to the local grocery store and asked to return people's shopping carts. Suspiciously, many of them thought they were doing it for money. Or that they wanted to preach the Lord to them.
After a few hours of that, they drove to the main city. We have an elderly lady in a wheelchair who sits by the side of the road, under a tree, near the Walgreen's store. Every time I have ever driven on that street, there she is. They parked and walked over to ask if they could buy her lunch. Anywhere! She too was hesitant and way too proud to accept "charity." My friends said nope, it's not charity. It's love. It's Valentine's Day and we thought you might be getting hungry. We can even just go over to McDonald's (a couple of blocks away) and bring you something. Well, she said, I sure do like their chicken sandwich. Magic. It was hers.
They decided then and there to purchase several bags of hamburgers and cheeseburgers and drove around looking for small groups of what looked like homeless people. Mostly men, so they went together. The groups, at first, were distrusting. Hunger took over and tentatively they each accepted a sandwich. My friends (now you can see yet another reason I love them) offered them each a second, yet they refused. Instead, the men told my friends about other groups of people who would be even happier to get a burger. Not one person accepted more than one. It was a treat and they knew how special it was.
Love is simply everywhere. Sometimes I just have to look.
The random acts of kindness project your friends did was great. Taking shopping carts back wouldn't work here because it's an every day occurrence where I shop. People going in will always offer when you're unloading your groceries. I've even had people offer to unload my groceries and when Don was alive to help me help him in and out of his wheelchair. Any little act of kindness make society so much better.
ReplyDeleteAnd imagine, in this perfect weather, people here usually just push them into your car! People waiting for my parking place often HONK and wave their hands up over their head when I walk my cart into a proper place or back to the store. Crazy thoughtless people sometimes!!
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