There are many stories from around the country that are filled with simple acts of kindness. Acts that uplift those in need of help and understanding, or kindness and compassion.
Whilst there is insanity coming from our ‘leaders’, and from groups that are trying to divide us and bring us down...you can find balance, sanity, kindness and enrichment from our neighbors, friends and even strangers.
We must remember this. Especially now.
It’s the little things that make the world go round.
Here is a compilation of three such stories that have happened recently around the U.S.
Think of this particular diary as:
Chicken Soup For The Kossacks Soul
1. The Milkshake-
Emily Pomerantz was fighting pancreatic cancer for the third time. And in this round, she was losing the battle. She was told she would soon die. She was placed in hospice care.
The Washington D.C. civil-rights attorney was talking with her dear friend, Sam Klein.
”As she was doing her swan song as she liked to say, I said, 'Hey, is there anything you're going to miss in terms of food"?' And she said, 'What I would do right now for a Tommy's mocha milkshake,” which is in her native Cleveland Heights, Ohio. 400 miles away.
“And as we’re laughing about this, talking about our memories of Tommy’s, my mind is racing. I’m thinking, ‘How can I do this?’”
Sam got in touch with Tommy’s owner, Tommy Fello. "It touched my heart, and I said, 'boy, I'd love to be able to do something. Yes. We will figure out a way to do this.”
He made it happen. He made it himself with his entire crew, and asked them all to sing or pray, externally or internally, their favorite songs or prayers whilst he made it.
Unbeknownst to them,..performing what the Hindus call the sacred Prasadam...spiritually-charged food.
They then packed it in dry ice, and sent it overnight mail via UPS to the Arlington hospice bed of Emily.
Tommy refused to accept Klein’s offer to pay the $130 tab. “Are you kidding me? There is no price for how good this feels.”
“I had kept it a secret and sure enough she called that morning and said, ‘I am sure you are behind this. This is the most incredible thing ever. Tommy’s sent me a mocha milkshake!’ And we had a good laugh. Even better: She got to share the milkshake with her brothers who visited later that day. She lived off that memory for the last week of her life. She came over for dinner more than once and that’s all we talked about. How fun is that that she got something from Tommy’s? Rather than feel like she was just another person with cancer, Tommy made her feel like a superstar.”
Said Tommy after he saw the picture of Emily’s smile, “When they say that giving is better than receiving, boy they weren’t kidding. My heart is so overflowing with love and happiness.”
“When I saw the picture of Emily with the milkshake with a giant smile on her face, I’ll tell you, I never had such a feeling in my life. I couldn’t imagine how happy somebody could be just from getting one of our shakes. The shakes are good, but they’re not that good. It’s the love and caring.”
Klein returned to Ohio a few days after his friend’s death. He stopped into Tommy’s to say thank you. “I said, ‘Thank you, Tommy, you made such a world of difference.’ I started talking to our waitress and she said, ‘Oh my God, thank you. We all cried as we were packing up this milkshake, what a great thing….
...and you know what? What we all learned is that the smallest things can make the biggest difference’.”
2. From Strangers to Friends to Family -
Whilst a high school freshman, the soccer and track/field loving Tiffany Gambill started to feel strange. And it wouldn’t go away, it only intensified.
The tests came back from the doctor. She was diagnosed with a hereditary and rare disease, Friedreich’s Ataxia, which causes progressive damage and pain to the nervous system. And over time, will shut down every muscle in the body. Including her speech..and eventually, her heart.
By the time she was 27, she was bound to a wheelchair and was beginning to lose her speech, sight and hearing.
She had been training at a local cross-fitness gym with her mom for years to help maintain strength and keep her upper body fit before it follows in the footsteps of her lower body.
Before she would be unable to...she decided to participate in the arduous Spartan Race, which pits each competitor with 25 obstacles over a 5 mile course.
”I wanted to prove to myself that even though I’m in a wheelchair, I can still do things like normal people, whatever that means.”
5 members of that gym heard about her goal and volunteered to join her on her quest.
“I was so incredibly grateful and surprised that these five people – most I didn’t know – were willing to do all of this work so I could get a medal.”
So, they trained. And got close. And grew.
And then the event. The 2017 Spartan Sprint in Boston.
Where she scaled walls, crawled under barbed wire, climbed a rock wall, went through water and crossed over fire.
Smiling the whole time.
With just a little help from her friends.
3. The Hero Seamstress-
Alfred Angelo Bridal Stores, with very little notice, declared bankruptcy and all 62 stores across the country abruptly closed.
They also supplied dresses to over 1,600 stores. With over 18,000 unfulfilled orders that were already paid for. Dresses and gowns for brides and brides maids. And the company felt absolutely no obligation to provide the service that they were intrusted...and also to not return any of the dresses for others to alter.
But for 74 people, they had Rozetia Ellis.
Rose worked for seven years in two of the Oklahoma stores as a contracted seamstress. And on the day her store closed, she was told that the company would not fulfill the remaining orders.
Though now unemployed, Rose gathered up the 74 dresses and put them all in her car. "Loaded in my car, front, trunk, back seat, side panel, on the floor board, until they stacked all the way up to the top.”
And then she worked 15 hours a day, altering each dress, stitch by stitch. In order of the dates of the weddings.
She called each customer and told them not to worry. She had the dresses and would return them each in time for the weddings. For Free!
Once a week, she drives 250 miles round trip to Oklahoma City, where she pays to meet at a hotel to give the altered dresses to the brides.
One of the brides is Stephanie Huey.
"When I got to the hotel, she had only brought four or five dresses and I asked her, 'Where are the other dresses?' and she said, 'I'm not finished with those yet. I was just dumbfounded. I thought her good deed was just to bring the dresses back to everyone, but she was still doing all the alterations -- and for free. This woman is just doing so much out of the goodness of her heart.”
Huey and other women who were helped have started a GoFundMe page to show their appreciation of her selfless service. And to give her a small cushion whilst looking for a new job. It has garnered $24k so far.
When this story first broke, with the knowledge of what these women were going through, many recent brides offered up their own dresses to others left in the lurch, and other bridal shops offered special deals. Some offered free gowns with expedited services.
When all the dresses are complete and she can think about her future, Rose said, "All I can do is wait and see. But I can just say, 'Hey, if my girls are taken care of and they can walk down the aisle with a smile, there's no worries.”
“My agenda is to make sure that all my brides I have come in contact with have that fabulous wedding day that they were expecting to have from the beginning.”