26 acts of kindness, #3

Since I've taken on the 26 acts of kindness as a goal of my own, I wanted to share with you a few comments that I've received from friends. I also want to take another minute to clarify once again that I cannot take credit for this movement. Ann Curry is the one who created this whole idea. I am just merely applying it to my own life. Last week after posting my first blog entry, I received a lot of really nice and positive comments about how my entry made people feel. I also had several people tell me about how they decided to also try to pay it forward by doing their own 26 acts of kindness. One friend wrote on my Facebook wall and told me that she did the first of her 26 acts and how good it felt. She had a friend who started a charity to raise money for new books for kids in low income schools in the county they live in - so the kid have books to take home and read whenever they want. She donated $26 to the charity in honor of the 26 victims. It really warmed my heart to hear that other people were taking this idea seriously. And while I know that there's a whole movement out there working on the 26 acts, there's just something special about seeing people in your own little world making the efforts as well. The same girl also messaged me a few nights later telling me about her second act - she and her husband were out on a date night and had stopped at a Starbucks before hitting a movie. Because there was some sort of mix up in the drive-thru line at the Starbucks, they had to wait a very long time for their order, so Starbucks gave them a gift card to use at a later date. Noticing that the car behind them was pretty beat up, and that it was an older couple in the car,  my friend and her husband asked the drive-thru employee to please pass that gift card on to the car behind them instead. I loved hearing her stories!

Last night I got a message from another friend. She told me that while she was at work the other day, she was telling a co-worker about my blog and the 26 acts of kindness that I was working on. She was specifically telling her co-worker about the thank you cards/cash that I gave to the McDonald's employees - she went on to tell me that while she knew her boss in the other room could hear what she was saying, she didn't really think she was paying attention. Later that day though, when she got back from lunch, her boss had dropped a card on her desk. Her boss wrote a note to her, thanking her for all the extra hours and hard work she's been putting in lately, and inside the card was  $260.00. My friend told me that it didn't even dawn on her until two days later that the amount was 26 - she told me how happy it made her, and that she just wanted me to know that my "pay it forward" message was working. This friend happens to live on the other side of the country - actually both of them do. That's pretty cool, and I'm really excited to share those stories and continue working on my own.
 
While I want to find people who are really in need and really searching for help, it's hard to know exactly what to do. I've talked about taking 26 brown bag lunches into San Francisco and passing them out to the homeless, but Eric but the kibosh on that one. He thinks it might be too dangerous, and while I know there are hungry people there, I agree that he is probably right. San Francisco's homeless population is in a league of its own. Our homeless are aggressive and can be downright scary. I have a friend whose husband is a San Francisco cop - maybe I can talk to her and ask her if he has any ideas of a safe way to go about something like that. I still plan to give blood - blood banks are always in need of donations.  We've been having some unusually cold nights here lately, so I know that a warm coat or two would be appreciated as well...

I was just thinking back to the days when I worked in the mall. I was right around 19 or 20 and working as the assistant manager in a record shop while I went to college. I was living at home with my parents, and while my record store salary wasn't a heck of a lot more than minimum wage, for someone like me, with very few expenses, I was able to pay any bills I had with plenty left over for whatever I wanted to spend it on. Working in the mall was fun - I don't know what it's like now, but twenty years ago it was like its own little microcosm. There were the trampy girls who worked across the way at the tuxedo rental shop, and the nerdy teens who worked at KayBee Toys. The Kenny G lookalike who worked at the piano store next to us, and the Michael Bolton guy who cut hair at the salon around the corner. The stern looking women in their weird nurse's uniforms who worked at See's Candies upstairs, and the mall security cop who looked like the guy from Right Said Fred (you know, the, "I'm Too Sexy for my shirt" guy. I just know that guy spent his days off dancing around his living room in a mesh tank top and leather pants. I just know it!).

 In addition to the mall employees we saw on a regular basis, there were also the regular mall-goers. The mall-walkers that we'd see during the weekday mornings, the tall, very strange Swedish guy named Hans who used to come looking for me so often that I'd literally duck behind the counter pretending to do inventory if he came by. The "mean man" who was in his sixties and would come in with his wife every week and browse for hours while snapping at anyone who came near him.... In addition to the mall-walkers, the mean man, and Hans, there was also a small old man who was a daily fixture at the mall. He'd appear sometime just before the mall actually opened, during the time that we were in our stores getting ready for the day, but before we'd opened our gates to let customers in. He wore the same pair of khaki pants every day, covered by a dirty and tattered trench coat. He also wore a brown fedora on his head. He spent all day every day in the mall, either sitting quietly on a bench, or pacing through the public area -he never entered any stores. He smoked cigarette butts that he found in the ashtrays and he usually had a small cup of McDonald's coffee in his hand. He never spoke to anyone, and no one ever spoke to him.  In the two years that I worked at the mall, this man was there every single day. He was clearly homeless and the mall was the place where he took refuge from the heat or the cold weather outside. (He never took off the trench coat though, even in the hot summertime.) I felt sad when I saw him and I talked to several of my co-workers about him. No one knew his story though. Finally, one day when Right Said Fred came into the store during his lunch break, I asked him. I figured the mall security must know something about the guy. All he could tell me was that the guy lived in a small pick-up truck with a camper shell that he parked at the farthest point of the mall parking lot during the day. They didn't allow him to park there at night, so he had to move it every night. He said they had seen it parked in various parking lots around Pleasanton. That winter we had an especially cold spell and I worried about the old man. I wanted to buy him some new clothes or at the very least, a warmer coat, but I was afraid he wouldn't take it - somehow he just didn't seem like the type to accept help. I went to Macy's and found him a heavy wool overcoat. I also bought him two pairs of pants just like what he had, some t-shirts and a sweater. I took the clothes home and wrapped them in wrapping paper, and then on Christmas Eve, I took them with me into the record store. I went to find Right Said Fred in his office and I asked him if he was closing that night. He was, so I asked him if he'd be willing to walk with me to find the man in the parking lot so that I could give him the presents after the mall closed. I hoped that by wrapping them in Christmas wrap and calling them gifts, that maybe he'd accept them from me. Right Said Fred (hereafter known as Fred) looked at me like I was crazy, but he agreed to help me. So that night, after we finished cleaning the store and counting out our registers, I put on my coat and went to find him. Fred was waiting for me in the parking lot. He told me that he'd noticed the truck parked over by Macy's, so we walked over that way. We cautiously approached the truck, but it was empty -the old man wasn't there. I was disappointed, but figured I'd try again the next time I worked. As we walked away from the truck and back toward the mall, we saw the old man approaching us; he was heading for his truck. I waved at him. "Hi," I said. "Um...I work in the mall and I see you a lot, and I um just wanted to give you a little gift for Christmas." I held the bag toward him. He furrowed his brow and shook his head. "I don't accept handouts!" he said. I quickly shook my head, "Oh, no, this isn't a handout! It's a gift for you! I work in the mall and I bought some gifts for some of my friends, and I just wanted to give this to you." He began to get agitated, "I said I don't take handouts! I don't take charity!" He waved his arm in the air as if to shrug me off, and he started to walk away. "But, it's so cold out - it's a nice warm coat for you. Please! Consider it a present for you. Not a handout and not charity. It would make me happy if you'd take it!" He threw his cigarette butt on the ground and shouted as he continued to walk away, "I said no!" My eyes filled with tears as I nodded and looked at Fred in defeat. He kind of shrugged, "Oh well. You tried." I nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. It's just so cold out here." Fred agreed, "I know. But that's all you can do. Did you keep the receipts? Maybe you can return the stuff." As we walked back toward where my car was parked, I said, "Yeah, I guess so." We were quiet as Fred walked me to my car. I thanked him and got inside where I sobbed for ten minutes before driving home. I honestly don't even remember what I did with the clothes. I either dropped them at a Salvation Army drop off point, or I returned them. I can't remember. I still continued to see the old man every day in the mall, but I never approached him again. He continued smoking his cigarette butts and drinking his McDonald's coffee and life went on as usual. I continued to hide from Hans, and quietly sing, "I'm Too Sexy" every time Fred walked past me. I stayed in touch with several friends at the record store, even after I stopped working there, and several years later I was told by one of the girls there that the old man committed suicide in his truck while it was parked in the parking lot of the Pleasanton Jack in the Box. He allegedly shot himself. My heart broke a little bit that day. I wish there was more I could have done for that old man, but sadly, his problems were clearly more complicated than just needing a warmer coat.

This whole 26 acts thing has really made me think. It's great to step out of your comfort zone by doing something like passing out bag lunches to the homeless, or trying to help the old homeless man at the mall, but with all of the sad news in the world nowadays, it's also okay to just stay within our own circles - you never know what's going on in someone's life, and maybe a smile and a nice gesture will go a lot farther than you even realize. Does that make sense? I hope so. 

Today I did my third part of this process. 

I've been seeing the same family doctor for about seven years. He's a mild mannered, white-haired man who has a small family practice. I don't have many medical issues, but because of my damn migraines, I consider myself somewhat of a nuisance patient. I need him to bundle six boxes of my Imitrex injections at a time which always seems to cause confusion for the pharmacy- then because the migraines cause nausea, he occasionally has to call in an anti-nausea drug for me. He's also given me trials of preventative medications to see if we could possibly prevent the migraines from occurring instead of treating them once they arrive. I'm one of those people who really like to do my own research, so if I show up in his office with news of some new drug that's on the market, he's always willing to listen to me and make an educated decision as to whether it might be right for me. We don't do much experimenting anymore though - it's mostly just the Imitrex shots and the Phenergan for the nausea. But the fact that he's always willing to listen and never scoffs at me when I come in there thinking I might have some new answer - well, that means a lot to me. He also somewhat forces me to get a flu shot every year. Up until about four years ago I never got them. That year he came into the little room to see me for a migraine, and as he was walking out, he said, "Did you get your flu shot?" I said no, that I didn't get flu shots. He stopped and said, "I really recommend getting one. Why don't you get one?" I told him that I'd just never done it, and I worried that I'd get sick from the shot itself. He said, "Nah, you won't. Come on, just get one. I'm going to send the nurse in with the paperwork." I agreed, but the second he walked out of the room, I jumped off the table and left! I'm such a chicken! So, the next time he asked me again, "Did you get a flu shot?" I started to laugh and said, "No." Then I told him what I'd done. He laughed, too, and said, "I really think you should get one." I said, "Okay, I will -and this time I'll really stick around for it." And I did. Of course I didn't get sick from the shot. My arm didn't even get sore. Every year since then I've gotten a flu shot, and I really do believe that they've helped keep me well. Another thing that I love about my doctor is how supportive he's always been in my weight loss endeavors. I've talked to him in depth about my struggles. I've told him that no amount of exercise will help me  drop the extra pounds I'm carrying; that the only way I lose is if I severely restrict the calories I take in. He looked at me and shrugged as he grabbed my chart. "When was your last physical?" he asked. I told him that it hadn't been long since I'd had one. He said, "Besides the migraines, you have no medical issues.Your blood sugar is fine, your blood pressure is fine. Cholesterol is right where it should be. You know what? Sometimes you just have to accept yourself for what you are. You are healthy, you look just fine to me, you are happy. So what if you're carrying a few extra pounds? You exercise and eat as healthy as you can, and that's all okay with me. Maybe you need to be okay with that, too." Maybe some doctors might smack him for saying such a thing, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. I've never forgotten his words either. His staff is always helpful and friendly as well. They fit me in when I need to be seen, and they go to bat for me with my stupid insurance when they deny my Imitrex. So I just really appreciate everything they do for me. 

So today I typed up a letter for him and his staff, just taking a moment to thank them for all they do for me. I know how busy they are - their phones are constantly ringing off the hook, and the waiting room is always full of people. I know they work hard in there. I printed out the letter, put it inside a thank you card, and put a Starbucks gift card for each of the twelve employees in the office. In the letter, among other things, I wrote, 

".....So, to you and your staff I’d like to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.  Please take a gift card for each of you and enjoy a little treat on me. And when you do so, I hope it makes you smile to know that you have all touched my life in a very special way. Thank you again."  

I ran the card up to his office after I picked up the kids from school - they waited out in the hallway for me. I knew they were busy, but I made sure his office manager saw it on her desk before I left. We went home after that to work on homework, and about half an hour later my cell phone rang. It was the office manager thanking me. She said that my card made her choke up when she read it, and that she really appreciated the gesture. I know they might not all drink coffee, so hopefully they can use it for a tea or a scone or something else the next time they go to Starbucks.  

So, as you can see, my acts of kindness are nothing too grand. Nothing really newsworthy. But I do hope that they at least cause a smile or two - and, like my friend across the country, maybe someone else reading these stories or hearing about them will make the choice to do something as well. That's all I can really ask for. Thank you for reading.

Here are links to the other entries:

26 acts of kindness, #1
26 acts of kindness, #2