Our parents teach us many things.
I grew up in a special neighborhood. Maybe you did, too. There were block parties, baseball games at Culler’s field, evenings of hide-and-seek, kick-the-can, redlight-greenlight, colored eggs.
And there were solemn moments, as when a family in our neighborhood experienced the death of a loved one. My mother would take an envelope and pen and go from door to door through the neighborhood to ask for a dollar or two – whatever the neighbor wanted to donate toward a flower arrangement from the neighbors to be sent to the funeral home for the family. The money that remained was given to the family with a card everyone signed and our condolences.
This act of kindness still brings tears to my eyes. I was young as I tagged along with her, my heart learning compassion, concern, caring for others. My mother said everyone I met was not going to like me. That was OK, though, because I wasn’t going to like everyone I met in life. I didn’t have to make everyone my best friend, she said, “but be kind to everyone.”
Kindness: the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.
Many years later, when my parents were elderly, their canine companion, Josh, died. They took the loss kind of hard. The neighbors must have remembered those many times my mother went door-to-door to collect money for flowers. They brought a card to my parents … a generous and considerate thing they did in showing kindness to Mom and Dad. I will never forget this.
Perhaps we all took a lot for granted back then. But today where is kindness? When you look around your little corner of the world, where do you find kindness? Where do you spend it? The education department of Family Recovery Center (FRC) will be focusing on kindness during Random Acts of Kindness Week.
“Some of our Youth Coalition students are going to work on a campaign for spreading kindness during the week of Feb. 13,” said Allison Zepernick, Prevention Education/Education Marketing at FRC. “Columbiana County Youth Coalition students will pass out cards with kind, motivational words, wristbands with motivational quotes, and smiley face pins. The National Random Acts of Kindness Day is Feb.17.”
“This will be the third year doing this with the Youth Coalition kids,” said Douglass Murray, Youth Coalition Coordinator for FRC’s Jefferson County site.
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, a nonprofit, strives to “make kindness the norm,” stating that “all people can connect through kindness and kindness can be taught.” Just seeing acts of kindness being done can have positive health affects like lowering blood pressure The production of oxytocin, the “love hormone,” raises self-esteem and optimism. Many people experience more energy when they have helped someone else, feeling calmer and having a greater feeling of self-worth. There is nothing like “the helper’s high.”
“Kindness is the only thing that doubles when you share it,” says the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation.
For more information about Family Recovery Center’s programs and services for substance abuse and related behavioral issues, contact the agency at 964 N. Market St., Lisbon; phone, 330-424-1468; or email info@familyrecovery.org. Visit the website at familyrecovery.org. You can find Family Recovery Center at Facebook. FRC is funded in part by the Columbiana County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board.