My friend, Delores has an empathetic heart; one way she expresses this is by sending her homemade cards. She delights in taking breaks to retreat to her “She Shed,” her RV camper in the backyard, where she has her table set up with all her card-making materials. She also takes it upon herself to encourage others to send cards, knowing the delight of the receiver when those tangible signs that someone cares fill their mailboxes.

Recently Delores sent me a text about a five-year-old boy who’s been dealing with cancer. She included his address and said “I thought you’d like to send a card to him.” She reminded me of Mama, who often told me about people in our family or church who were sick or grieving and she’d say, “I thought you’d want to send a card.” 🙂 With Mama it seemed like an indirect way of saying “You should do this . . .”. and underneath was the implication of you should feel guilt if you don’t; that’s how I interpreted it as a sometimes rebellious daughter. But with Delores, I saw it as a groundswell of her kind and giving heart.

She sent a second text with the young boy’s picture in his hospital bed–smiling with a bald head from recent chemo. Then it occurred to me that he’s the same age as my younger grandson, Parks. How it would break my heart if he were going through what the boy in that picture has been experiencing. I would buy him a card but wanted to put something inside, knowing how kids like surprises. Thinking about Parks, he loves shopping at the toy section of Target; I could send a gift card. But then I thought about the little boy so sick and immune compromised, unable to take what might seem to others as a routine shopping trip.

Thinking about my grandsons, I knew they loved Legos and Super Heroes. I made the trip to Target and bought him a Spiderman Lego kit.

I added a card with a Golden Retriever on the cover with a simple note to wish him well, tell him I had 2 grandsons who called me “Grammy,” and that we were sending him this package with “Love and Best Wishes.” Then I made an easy stop at the post office to mail the package of encouragement with a total cost of about twenty dollars.

Twenty dollars, I thought. I remember that twenty dollars I got in Martha’s card when I was going through chemo.

She was a friend of Mama’s from her church. Martha wrote a sweet note about how she wished she could do more for me, but hoped I could find something I liked for twenty dollars. So many times through my eight months of treatment, those mailed encouragements came on the day when I felt overwhelmed, cast down by cancer. I began to see the kindnesses of others like ‘manna falling from heaven’– just enough to get me through that day, arriving at the perfect moment.

I did find something I liked; a light catcher of an angel in beautiful blues and golds. I put it in my bedroom window where I could see it when I was most tired, often after returning from chemo sessions. When I was done with treatment, a woman I knew was also diagnosed with breast cancer. I mailed the angel to her. I don’t know what happened with it after that, but I know that Martha’s twenty dollars multiplied.

I didn’t tell about sending the boy the lego set for readers to think I’m generous, thoughtful etc. So many times, I overlook what others need and choose instead to focus on myself. But this time, I made the decision to act, moved by my friend’s action. This time, I saw that overall, it required so little of me to hopefully multiply the impact for that 5-year-old, as well as to encourage his worn down parents.

Is there someone or something calling you to act? We don’t have to do or say the perfect thing–which is often our fear. Just letting that person know we see them, we care, and we stand with them, is enough.

Best to you as you start a chain reAction 🙂

Connie