A lot of good people
We’re all thoroughly sick of bad news about the pandemic: rising infection and mortality rates and shortages of essential medical equipment.
So this column is entirely about good news: the countless acts of caring and kindness individuals are performing every day.
Marty Wuerstlin, who runs an appliance repair business in the Maryland suburbs of Washington where I live, put it well: “There are a lot of good people in the world, and nobody hears about it.”
Marty is one of them. He recently went to the home of John Sclavounos, a retired widower, to fix a broken ice-maker. But John turned him away at the front door, saying, “I’m sick, I don’t want to infect you.” Marty consulted his wife, Connie, and left John a phone message: Can we bring you a pot of Connie’s homemade soup? And if you’re sick and alone, do you need her to stay with you?
“I’d never heard of anything like this in my life. I really haven’t,” John told me. “To me it’s overwhelming that there’s such kindness out there in these days. The press doesn’t report on the kindness as often as need be.”
He’s right; we don’t. But the story of Marty and John is duplicated in communities and neighborhoods across the country, and the givers gain as much as the receivers. Making soup is as nourishing as eating it. The best way to cope with the pandemic is to help someone else cope.
A group of mental health professionals in my town are offering free online therapy sessions to anyone who needs counseling. Marjorie Kreppel, the group’s founder, told me: “I get more joy from doing these free sessions than from anything in my day. It raises my happiness. It feels good to help other people feel good.”
A quick Google survey turns up a vast array of generous and creative gestures. Here are just a few:
— The teachers from Prestonwood Elementary School in north Dallas organized a parade through the neighborhoods where their students live. The teachers decorated their cars with signs (“Sending Hugs!! Mrs. Lyon”) and the kids cheered back, waving pompoms, pictures and posters of their own (“We Miss You Teachers,” proclaimed 10-year-old Mira Joachimiak). Vice principal Aaron Ward told a reporter, “Seeing faces digitally is nice, but something about personal connection, just seeing each other like that, keeps us from taking each other for granted.”
— A woman named Rebecca Mehra tweeted out this story: “I went to the grocery store this afternoon. As I was walking in, I heard a woman yell to me from her car. I walked over and found an elderly woman and her husband. She cracked her window open a bit more, and explained to me, nearly in tears, that they were afraid to go into the store.” The woman pushed a $100 bill and a shopping list through the window. Mehra bought their groceries, stowed them in the trunk and returned the change. “I know it’s a time of hysteria and nerves, but offer to help anyone you can,” she posted later. “Not everyone has people to turn to.”
— Lane Grindle, a radio announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers, had a brainstorm while playing outside with his four small children. “What if we all put our Christmas lights back up?” he tweeted. “Then we could get in the car and drive around and look at them.” In Brookhaven, Ga., Ginny Dunn encouraged her neighbors to haul out any holiday decorations. One inflated a 9-foot pumpkin. Another put out illuminated candy canes. Others displayed Valentine hearts and Irish shamrocks. In my neighborhood, my chocolate Lab, Rosie, and I encountered a 10-foot-tall inflatable dragon adorned with a sign saying, “I’m Waving to You. Wave Back to Me.” Rosie and I both smiled and waved. Or at least, I think she did.
In the nearby town of Chevy Chase, village manager Andy Harney organized a weekend dance party, hiring a DJ to tour the neighborhood, playing a few songs at 24 different stops through loudspeakers attached to the roof of his car. One favorite was the old disco standard “I Will Survive,” which includes these lyrics:
“Did you think I’d crumble / Did you think I’d lay down and die?
“Oh no, not I / I will survive / Oh, as long as I know how to love, I know I’ll stay alive.”
Yes, we will. Together.