That warm, fuzzy feeling

That warm, fuzzy feeling

On Wednesday night I joined about 160 others for a viewing of "Smart People", a movie I liked much to my surprise, given the lacklustre reviews. The movie session was arranged as a fund raiser for an acquaintance who at 32 has a terminal illness, and who could do with some extra cash to cover her medical and other expenses. She doesn't know about it yet. A few friends will be going to her place tomorrow to let her know that around $4000 has been raised for her, with more to follow if plans for an auction take off. Originally they were nervous about selling 100 tickets, to generate profit of $1000. But around 200 tickets were snapped up very quickly, and donations rolled in. I am touched by the generosity and empathy displayed by people, including those that have never known her. Some days I feel a bit cynical about the world. There are so many negative stories out there, it is hard not to. Wednesday night was a good antidote.

Three of the donations came from women on my father's side of the family - his sister, a cousin and her daughter. I picked the donations up from the mailbox after I had been out grocery shopping with two ratty toddlers who had worn me thin (they were tired). The kindness of these woman to a stranger gave me a lift that carried me through the rest of the day. Coincidentally, also in mail was a CD full of over 300 old family photos that had been compiled by another cousin of my father's (the brother of one of the women) and his son. Every photo had been carefully retouched and many of them date back over a century. The photos had been passed down the generations, and added to in an album until technology made it possible to easily distribute the images amongst every member of the family. What an incredible gift. And another blow to my cynicism.

My father is lucky to have come from a family full of very caring and empathetic people, on both his mother's and father's side. My grandmother is a soft touch, and I remember her often in tears over the TV commercials during the Ethiopian famine in the 80's. Her daughter, Eileen, is one of the kindest, gentlest, and most generous people I know. A grandmother herself now, she devotes a lot of time to helping to care for her eight grandchildren. My father's cousin who compiled the CD, Athol, lost his mother and father (my grandfather's brother) when he was in his teens/early 20s. They died five years apart, both of heart failure (I think).

Athol included a memorial notice for his parents in the CD:

Twenty years have gone by,
Many times we have wished you would walk through the door,
Forever held close in our hearts, mum and dad.

He, his brother, John, and his sister, Noelene (who donated the money) were also devastated when their sister, Raewyn, died of a sudden stroke several years ago.

I think this goes some way to explaining why they have treasured their family heirlooms and taken care to distribute photos to the family. The importance of what you have is magnified by what you have lost.

Getting back to my broken cynicism, I gave a friend a lift home from the movie the other night. She is a very talented person, with a real can-do attitude - I have always admired her zest for life and new experiences. She told me that she was teaching blind children about musical instruments once a week, the last session being on the bongo. "I didn't know you knew how to play the bongo", I said. "I can't", she said, "but it is not so hard - all you do is bang it in different places to make different sounds." She is introducing them string instruments in the next session. And that warm fuzzy feeling keeps on rolling.



(The picture at the top is L-R - my grandmother, Eileen, my grandfather's sister, Dorothy, My Grandfather, Ray, and Athol's parents, Kathleen and Jack. The picture above is my grandfather as a baby with his twin brother, Tom, and his other siblings, the twins, Jack and Vera, and Dorothy (centre).)