Acts of Kindness

There is an old proverb that rings very true for me. “A true friend shows love at all times and is a brother born for times of distress.”

The loss of a parent is difficult for anyone and I lost both of mine over the last several years. One to a slow agonizing demise and the other swiftly and without time for goodbyes.

Sometimes I think I would be a hot, traumatized mess because of these last few years if not for one thing: my friends and their small (and sometimes large) acts of kindness. They became my brothers and sisters in my time of distress. They didn’t owe me anything. They weren’t related or indebted to me or my family in anyway. We weren’t their obligation. They simply loved us. The story I am telling isn’t to garner sympathy, but rather to show how much this love was needed and appreciated.

My mother’s illness started with a massive aneurysm. It wasn’t sure that she would survive. I got the news at work. I was there alone. So, no one was there to see me completely lose it. I practically was having a panic attack. Somehow, I managed to get ahold of my husband, screaming and crying into the phone, almost incoherent I’m sure. He decided that my mother in law would be closer and in a better position to get me to the hospital sooner and called her. She dropped everything and drove me there when I was too out of my mind to operate a vehicle.

When we arrived at the hospital there was already an army of friends in the waiting room there to support me. Somehow, they had gotten there even before me. My mother survived, but it left her broken and with a big uphill battle. She would never be the same after that. She recovered her ability to walk and speak, but her personality was different. She became less sure of herself, more dependent and childlike. My father, who wasn’t exactly the picture of health either, had a big job ahead of him.

It wasn’t long after my mother regained some of her abilities, that she had another stroke. Her cancer had also returned and because of reoccurring diverticulitis, part of her colon had to be removed. She also had a major blood clot in her leg that doctors were worried could let loose and travel to her heart. So, there she was, wheelchair bound, fitted with a colostomy bag, receiving painful injections daily and regressing mentally even more. It wasn’t very surprising then that my father had his first stroke. It wasn’t a massive stroke, but it was enough of one that he was having cognitive issues and had to spend some time in the hospital. I was panicking. I wasn’t sure if I would need to quit my job to take care of both of my parents or even if I had the ability to. Our friends really stepped up to the plate during this. Some went grocery shopping for us. Some of them mowed our lawn for us. Some brought meals. Some stayed with my mother while we had to take care of other matters. Some cleaned my parents’ home. And along with it all was much needed moral support.

My father eventually recovered enough to resume caring for my mother, but eventually it became too much for him and he was forced to admit her to a nursing home. That wasn’t the end of the caring acts by friends. They regularly visited her and also came to pick her up to bring her to our place of worship several times a week. They never let her feel like she had been abandoned there or forgotten.

Eventually my mother passed away one Sunday morning, but even in her passing she wasn’t alone. A friend had been there when it happened. I will forever be grateful.

We weren’t left to care for funeral arrangements on our own either. I don’t remember our family having to do anything for the meal afterwards. Our friends had arranged for the venue to be booked and organized a carry in for food. Our family had more meals brought to our home in the aftermath that we could hardly use it all. We were sent restaurant gift cards to make our life a little easier. We wanted for nothing.

Things were relatively quiet for a few years aside from my father slowing down, but almost two years to the day my mother died, my father had a massive stroke that rendered him unconscious. Once again, we were surrounded by friends at the hospital who stayed with us all night till early hours of the morning when I had to make the difficult decision to take him off life support. They prayed with me and they cried with me.

I even believe that God performs small acts of kindness in our times of need. I feel like I experienced that on our way home from the hospital in the wee hours of that morning. We had driven back to my dad’s house to gather some items before heading to our place. I was staring numbly out the window into the yard. It was dusk out and a little foggy. There in the yard was a mother deer and her baby grazing. I was able to watch her for several minutes before she caught sight of me and they bounded away. Oddly enough, you don’t see deer around here that often even being the country. When we finally headed to our home, there was the most beautiful sunrise on one side of us and a rainbow on the other side. Those sights soothed my battered soul in a way nothing else could. I knew things would be ok.

The aftermath of my father’s death wasn’t much different from my mother’s. The support I received from friends was still incredibly generous and impactful. But even more so were their expressions of love and respect for my parents and the little stories they told me about them that I had never heard before that let me know just how much they were valued. Even over a year after my last loss, I still get these stories trickling in. It keeps their memory alive. It makes me realize that they were loved so much because they too were constantly showing acts of kindness to others. It’s their legacy. Perhaps never more have I realized that this is what I want my purpose in life to be about. It’s what it has to be about. There is nothing more noble than giving of yourself, whether in the form of words, deeds, or actions in behalf of others.