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An Anonymous Act of Kindness in a Most Unusual Way
How one woman's pain brought joy to others by moving forward herself.
Posted October 26, 2020
An Unexpected Way to Get Through the Pandemic
When I began blogging for Psychology Today using the title “Under Extreme Circumstances,” my intent was to entertain and educate readers using antidotes from adventures my wife and I experienced while I worked as a "bush doctor" in the wilds of the Alaskan Arctic, as told in my book On Call in the Arctic: A Doctor’s Pursuit of Life, Love and Miracle in the Alaskan Frontier. The extreme circumstances I referred to in my posts revolved around my life and work in Alaska as I practiced medicine under archaic conditions performing surgery without anesthesia using flashlights, traveling over life-defying terrain by snowmobile, dogsled, and small airplanes, and delivering babies in remote villages using nothing but Coleman lanterns and reindeer skins. Never in a million years would I have thought those circumstances would pale compared to what we all are going through now—as a world community—because of a virus known as COVID-19.
How do we get through a pandemic like the coronavirus? What can we do as a nation or a neighborhood to help? What can we do as individuals, within the structure of our own homes and families, to make sense of this, to deal with stresses caused by quarantines and social distancing until the pandemic shows signs of resolution? Does advice I give in my memoir help in a situation like the coronavirus pandemic?
The mantra of my memoir is simple. To survive when life throws a curve-ball and one is left with only their instincts to survive, persons must learn to improvise, be flexible, and persevere—and somehow everything will work out. Improvise, be flexible, persevere. I wrote that in my book because that’s exactly what I did in the Arctic and, ultimately, everything did turn out well. But what about now? Does any of this apply?
A day or so ago, I was watching a television news program that highlighted several families’ struggles trying to navigate financial woes caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Some families had no money to pay their rent, others struggled to put food on the table. One mother was driven to tears because she had no money to purchase a cake to celebrate her child’s fifth birthday.
It was sad watching this show because, there I was, sitting in my air-conditioned home, relaxing while my wife prepared a beautiful dinner, watching satellite TV, and resting from a day at my job I was privileged to still have. I pondered how fortunate I was compared to those depicted in this program and wondered what these people were doing to handle the extreme circumstances they found themselves embroiled in. I was especially moved by the young, single mother, who desperately wanted to give her child a birthday cake.
Listening to this young woman’s story, I learned there was no father in the child’s life and the mother had been laid off from her job as a waitress because of COVID-19. I suspected there was backstory I didn’t know regarding why the child’s mother had no familiar support to help her, but that wasn’t the point of the story. The point was this 5-year-old sweet and innocent child, through no fault of his own, would have a birthday with no one to celebrate his life.
I thought about my life in the Arctic and the struggles I had there, and I found myself wondering what advice I could give that young mother that might help. After all, I had written a book and I lectured on surviving life’s extreme circumstances, so I should be an expert.
Could the mother improvise in some way to provide her child a cake? Was there anything flexible she could be doing that would ease her situation? No matter how long she persevered in her fight to provide her son a birthday celebration, was there any chance something might finally happen that would make this sad event turn out all right if she just held on?
Several days later, I came upon an event that happened in Coventry, Rhode Island, as televised by WCAX TV. According to this story, a mother had pre-ordered a birthday cake from a local bakery for her son’s sixth birthday. When she went to pick up the cake, she was told by the bakery clerk the cake had already been paid for.
The mother insisted a mistake had been made. She’d placed an order for the cake by phone, but she hadn't yet paid. The store clerk assured that wasn’t the case. Further payment wasn't necessary.
The assistant manager of the shop, Liya Harrison, told the mother an unidentified woman had come into the shop saying she had lost her son a year before and she “wanted to spread positivity” to celebrate his life by anonymously paying for all the birthday cakes set for pickup that day.
“It was definitely an inspiration for me and the other girls here,” Harrison said. “It was really emotional. I was sad when she said it because I didn’t know what to say, but when she said she wanted to pay and help another family, that made me happy.”
This woman’s anonymous act of kindness grabbed me by the heartstrings. She had tragically lost her son, yet she found a way to move forward in her life by bringing joy to others. Then it dawned on me; we can all do the same thing as we struggle to get through this life—pandemic and all.
Be kind to one another and spread joy and help when you can. It won’t make the pandemic go away. Science will do that. But it will help endure the pain and struggle as we live day by day, awaiting the brilliant minds around the globe that will show us a path that will bring us out of this pandemic victorious.
