Acts of Kindness article link: https://abc7chicago.com/community-events/mom-caring-for-son-with-cancer-gets-spiteful-letter-about-yard/5446950/
This article was about a woman named Randa Ragland from Pinson, AL. She lives with her family, husband and son. The predicament that she had was having to worry about the appearance of her yard. In her story, she spoke about being harassed in written form by a note that was left for her from some of her neighbors. The things they wrote her was to clean her yard because it looked horrible and was ruining the appearance of their neighborhood.
She described in her story how cleaning her yard was the last thing that she was thinking about. She said to herself, “If my neighbors only knew what I was going through.” The situation that she was dealing with was that her husband had been recently laid off of work and her autistic 3 year old son was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma stage four cancer. (abc7, 2019) So basically she was just concerned with taking care of her son and spending time with him.
She one day decided to go on social media and she stated that “As much she wanted to get crazy with everyone she apologized instead.” (abc7, 2019) She shared her son’s story online describing everything that he has had to go through, such as the numerous surgeries. She said, “before she knew it, people, strangers were coming from everywhere to help her and her family.” (abc7, 2019) A landscape business came to fix her yard, other people came by to bring her groceries, and some even cleaned her home. She couldn’t believe how people that she didn’t even know had such big hearts and cared for her and her family. She still currently needs help, there’s a link with her Go Fund Me page at the bottom of the article, if you’re interested.
There were definitely elements of compassion by the strangers who came to help her. She was definitely appreciative beyond words. I imagine that Randa will never forget these huge acts of kindness that were done for her and her family.
The feeling I got from reading this story was uplifting, as Haidt described, “Amplified feelings of inspiration and upliftment, more positive views toward humanity in general, a greater desire to be with and merge with others, and an increased desire to behave prosocially.” (Thomson and Siegel, p. 629) Reading a story like this reminds you that there are good people in the world. As for feeling anything different, I didn’t.
Citations
abc7, (2019, August 6). ‘Do better:’ Community rallies around mom caring for son with cancer after neighbor’s spiteful note to clean yard, retrieved on January 14, 2020 from https://abc7chicago.com/community-events/mom-caring-for-son-with-cancer-gets-spiteful-letter-about-yard/5446950/.
Andrew L. Thomson & Jason T. Siegel (2017) Elevation: A review of scholarship on a moral and other-praising emotion, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12:6, 628-638, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2016.1269184
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