The Glass Half Full- Act of Kindness #5

On Thursday morning, I called my mother on my way to work. As she excitedly narrates her new adventure as part of a religious organization, she tells me last week she cried a lot while she was volunteering there. I asked her what the reason was. She started to tell me that her religious institution does work for the poor community in the area, specially for the children. So last week, they has a party to celebrate Children’s Day and each child received a little bag with a towel inside. That’s right, A TOWEL. Not a fancy toy or a videogame, but a towel.

This one little boy approached my mother with tears in his little eyes and said: “’tia’, I have never had a towel just to myself. Now, I do and I am going to take good care of it.” At first, the meaning of those words didn’t take effect on me. I believe that they were so powerful and so full of meaning, my brain needed a few minutes to process the depth of these words uttered by this little 5 or 6 year old boy.

My mom continued to talk about their plans for Christmas and how they want to give them bed sheets, 1 single twin size flat sheet. Now, this seemed so much more absurd in my brain that I could not understand what my mother was saying and the word “sheet” or “Lençol” in my native Portuguese, just didn’t process.  

Every day, of every time in my life, I try to be grateful and look at the glass half full. But never occurred to me a child could look at a glass half full “of towel.”

I want these kids to have the best and most memorable Christmas they have ever had. I am doing a drive collecting twin size bed sheets to send to them. If you want to help, let me know.

But since I want this day to be memorable, it must have fun, cotton candy, magic, and hope. My glass is half full because I can provide that to them. And for that, I will be forever grateful.