I posted this in the raffle thread, but it occured to me that that a new post may not be noticed there if someone isn’t checking regularly, so I’m reposting here.
Hello, friends.
I'm trying to find a way to tell you concretely, what you've really done and what you're really doing.
For one thing, you're saving me and Arleen from a financial situation that would be just about impossible to contemplate. As it was, we had allowed ourselves to be stretched farther than rational people ever should be. Without consciously planning, we've put all our resources into the adoptions and hadn't put anything aside for a rainy day. I guess we figured we'd get around to that sooner or later. I haven't fully recovered from losing my Internet job three years ago. Had been seeing some daylight as the whistle business developed, but still very tough. We were only just making the mortgage payments with Arleen's fulltime income, and now she won't be able to work for an unknown period of time. We'll put her student loans on hardship forbearance.
When we were in Boston, I went to get some groceries and my debit card was declined. I went back to the room, got out a calculator and discovered I had overdrawn my checking account. Got ahold of Jessie, and she wire transferred funds from the raffle. Instead of having to deal with a terrific mess right in the middle of Arleen's surgery, we were able keep going, thanks to your help. Going forward, I don't know what we'll encounter. I expect there will be several thousands in medical costs over what insurance pays, on top of our normal living expenses.
Maybe it isn't necessary to relate things in this kind of detail. But I'm trying to make it clear, what you're doing matters. It makes a big difference. A huge difference. And that's just talking about the difference it makes to help us survive financially.
However, there's something else here, about as life changing as anything I've ever encountered.
I mentioned in another post, that your kindness, and that of the neighbors here who are taking care of our children and bringing cooked meals to the house, has taken the edge off my cynicism about politics, corporate greed, world events and the like.
I've seen this kind of thing from a distance, like when someone got organized and put donation boxes in all the businesses so a high school student could get a lung transplant, or to help when someone's house burned down. It never occurred to me that someone would ever do something like that for me and my family.
It definitely changes the way you think about humanity.
I've said it before; you're changing the world. Every act of kindness, no matter how seemingly small, changes the recipient's experience of humanity. I'm convinced that small, and not so small, acts of kindness done by individuals, are the most positive force in the world today. They are the best answer I know for all the things that are wrong in the world, and I'm convinced that they do counterbalance the bad things.
Ultimately, I believe the world's problems are all spiritual. By spiritual, I don't mean necessarily having to do with God or religion, but rather, with the spirit of humanity. Every kind of violence and exploitation, every form of conflict and every manifestation of hatred, reflects a sickness and poverty of spirit in individual human beings. Those spiritual afflictions in the hearts of individual people, multiplied, are the big, pervasive problems of the world we talk about here at length.
Every act of kindness, no matter how seemingly isolated or small, nourishes the spirit of the recipient, and also of the giver. Even though seemingly inconsequential in comparison to the size of the world's problems, I'm convinced there is no other place where a real solution can happen.
A drop of mother's milk may seem inconsequential, but the cumulative effect of all the nourishment from every mother's breast has sustained and grown up every generation of humanity since the beginning of time. One drop at a time. I can think of nothing more important in this world than kindness. And every drop of kindness counts.
With my profound thanks and best wishes for all of you,
Jerry
