Got a Happy Story? Small Kindnesses Edition

This is the gratitude season and I've started thinking about small things, one time interactions with strangers that have made an impact on me.

This spring I was in a hospital waiting room while soberdad was having surgery.  I was half knitting, half waiting for C & J (yay wireless in the hospital) and an older woman told me that there was a simpler way to deal with my yarn.  She showed me how to roll the ball so that the yarn came out from the center and the ball wouldn't fly across the floor.  I thanked her and she said, "a woman showed me that one day in the park and she told me to teach it to someone else.  And now I have."

A few hours later there was a woman in the same waiting room on the verge of an anxiety attack.  I had seen her trying to buy Tylenol in the hospital gift store but they didn't carry any over the counter drugs.  She begged the women at the info desk and was directed to drive to a store 2 miles away.  I offered her the ones I was carrying.  She took them and the women at the desk thanked me.  The older woman explained that she was worried about her husband's surgery and that Tylenol helped with her anxiety.  I'm sure she would have been fine without the placebo effect but it was nice to be of service.

Got a Happy Story is a community gathering every Friday night where we share stories large and small that have put a smile on our face.  It is a time to acknowledge the joy and wonder we experience.  The Happy Story diary exists as a way to anchor the community in hope and comfort while we do the hard work of taking back our country. Everyone and all sorts of stories and pictures are welcome. May we find joy and strength here.

I'm thinking of all the small flukey things, those random acts of kindness, and they really do change one's experience with the world.  When soberboy was doing his 6 weeks in the hospital after he was born I received a book in the mail from someone I'd never met.  We knew each other from a mailing list and had chatted off and on through email.  I'd let him know that I'd be at the hospital most of the time so was going no mail with the list.  He sent me a book called A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane.  It was the perfect story to read at that time because it punched all of the right buttons to serve as a distraction when I needed a short escape.  I swear that it kept me sane when I needed it the most.

Several years back soberdad was at work in the city and he saw a man who looked homeless trying to cross the street.  He helped the man across the street and into his car in the handicapped space.  The man explained that he had MS and had sat all day in the jury pool.  The excursion had weakened him and he was profusely grateful for the assistance.  soberdad came home really pumped saying his work day had been so frustrating but his interaction with the man had made showing up for work worth it.

soberboy has a computer game called Backyard Baseball that he's had for an eternity.  The game has a diverse group of kids as players, all nationalities and abilities.  One of the kids, Kenny perhaps, is in a wheelchair.  When soberboy was about 4 he took off in the mall and went over to a boy in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy and started yammering away.  The mother was blown away and in tears saying to me, "no one ever talks to him.  Everyone always avoids us."  To soberboy he was just another kid.

I'm hosting the diary tonight because Carnacki put up the first Happy Story diary on a night I wanted to connect with the dKos community.  This was the place I started to get to know people on a more individual basis.  I'm grateful to him for starting the tradition and for Darryl who taught me that small happy stories can make up a diary as well.

Do you have a happy story from this week? Do you have a happy story from any time? If you’ve had a bad week then feel free to put up a WYFP preview.  Feel  free to share any random acts of kindness that you've given or experienced.  I would love to hear happy stories of any variety.