A Network of Kindness

Usually on American Thanksgiving I wax poetic about all of the many things I am thankful for.  I always mean it from the bottom of my heart.  This year I'm going to take a bit of a different track.  This year I didn't do a day of thankfulness on Facebook each day, because it is hard for me to keep up and it is also hard for me to fit everything that I am thankful for into 30 days!  I also am not going to make a big list of all of the family and such that I am thankful for.  Maybe it seems blasphemous, but I think I am pretty regular in expressing my thanks for those things continually.

This year, I'm going to live in the here and now.  The here and now for us, right now, in this week, is simple. Vomit...a lot of it!  It ain't pretty folks.  It is a germy, messy, laundry-inducing nastiness.  It is humbling really.  Catching your child's vomit in your hands has a way of doing that!  The other thing that has a way of humbling you in the midst of illness?  The kindness of humanity.

It's easy these days to say "What is wrong with this world?"  It is easy to say, "Why can't people just love each other?"  It is easy to say, "Things in this world are so bad and so wrong."  This week for me though?  I can't say any of those things and all because of a simple week of illness.

This week, as I spent the week dealing with the stomach flu, holding my children as they vomited and holding my own hair back as I myself experienced the awfulness, I was struck with the kindness of others.  It came in so many different ways.

• It came in the random text messages from friends asking me if we were feeling better.
• It came in the beautifully written email from a student at school that told me she was praying for my family and I, that she missed having me there as her teacher, that school just wasn't the same without me.
• It came in the form of my dear friend-who in many ways is still such a NEW friend, but has become a close friend-texting and asking me what she could do to help me and me swallowing my pride and telling her exactly what we needed.  This was followed by her loading her kids into the car and going fifteen minutes out of her way to drop off ginger ale, children's gravol, and Pepto Bismal in a bag on our doorstep without me even being able to hug her and say thanks.
• It came in the form of our wonderful neighbour taking our dog for a long walk in the woods since we simply had not had the chance to get her out for proper exercise due to all of the sickness.
• It came in the form of my teaching partner picking up the slack and taking an extra day of work this week, as well as marking assignments that were definitely my responsibility to mark leaving me feeling just a bit less overwhelmed by the load of work that awaits me whenever I can finally return to the school.
• It came in the form of Facebook friends both near and far wishing us well and letting us know that they were praying for us.
• It came in the form of my cousin totally handling the creation and arrangement of our Christmas cards, including ordering them, because I simply didn't have the ability to figure it all out in time but knew that it needed to happen this week!
• It came in the form of a very far away friend allowing me to iMessage her each time I accomplished a cleaning task on Tuesday-after a rough night of vomiting-and encouraging me to keep it up and keep going even though I was bugging her all day long with my mundane texts such as "I just finished disinfecting and cleaning Rusty's bedroom." or "I got our fourth load of laundry through the cycle."  Just knowing she would respond with a "Good job!" kept me motivated to keep going!
• It came in the form of countless colleagues asking me via email, texts or other messages how we were doing and letting me know they were thinking of our family.

There are so many other things that I could list, but mostly I was simply struck with the absolute kindness of the incredible humans we have surrounded ourselves with in our network.  We don't have a lot of family around here.  My family all lives far away, and Kev's parents are often gone for long chunks of time.  His brothers live in Chicago and Barcelona.  We don't have "blood" family that we see a lot of...but we DO have family.  We have family that we have found in the body of Christ that lifts us up when we are down.  We have family in the form of great friends that allow their children to be like cousins to our children when their actual cousins are so far away.  We have "blood family" that is there for us regardless of the distance via Skype, FaceTime, and so many other wonderful forms of technology.  We have family in the amazing neighbours that help us out when we are down. 

We are surrounded by this incredible, amazing, beautiful network of incredible people capable of incredible kindness and that?  THAT is what I am thankful for today.  Happy American Thanksgiving!