The Smallest Gestures Can Have A Huge Impact
This little rock changed everything for me. This post is about how even the smallest gesture can change the world and have an enormous impact on someone. I’m going to tell you a story.
When your sister, Addi Jo, was born, she came very early and she had a lot of medical complications. So she ended up in the NICU and we were there for 30 days. When she was first born, we had to stay in the hospital for a few days because your mom had surgery to get Addi out, and then after three days, we went home without our baby. And that was hard.
But every single chance we got, we were there. We wanted to change her diapers. We wanted to hold her. We wanted to feed her. We just wanted to be with her. She was our baby, she IS our baby, and she was our firstborn. We were so excited to finally meet her. But when you go through something like that, stress levels run high and it’s just challenging.
We were having a hard time with it, your mom and I. One night we were walking into the hospital and I looked on a little ledge by the hospital door and I found this little rock. On it were the words “You Can Do This!”
I grabbed it and said, Kelly (mom), look at this as I showed her the rock. She just started crying. She said, “I’ve been really having a hard time and this was a sign. This was a sign for me. I know I’m going to be okay. I know we’re going to be okay and we’re going to do our best and I just really needed this.”
Whoever put that there changed our night, life, and outlook on the current situation. It had a really powerful impact on us. So the moral of the story is, I don’t want you both to discount small kind gestures. I would like to encourage you both to be conscious of what you’re doing and be conscious of other people and go out of your way to make a small gesture of kindness to someone because you have no idea the impact that it could have on them.
One idea would be to compliment someone. If you go to the store, if you go to the bank, or you’re at a baseball field or wherever you are and you see something that strikes you that you think is nice, you don’t have to keep it in.
If you see someone struggling as you get older, maybe they’re on your team, in your class, or a coworker, give them some encouragement. That can have an impact.
If somebody needs help. Recently, I was walking into the UPS store and someone was carrying a big box. I offered to help. Or if someone’s having problems loading something into a truck, whatever it is, use your best judgment. Make sure you’re in a safe area. But it’s okay to help people. Not everyone’s bad. Most people are good and they’ll appreciate it.
Another small gesture could be opening a door for someone. It’s actually just good manners and you both will be taught this when you’re young. It’s just a good gesture. If someone’s behind you, open the door for them.
This is a good idea, smile. Smiles are super, super powerful and they don’t take any effort. Really. I would bet with almost 100% certainty when you smile at someone, they’re going to smile back. It’s pretty hard when someone smiles at you and they don’t at least give you a little smile back. But these little things, I’m telling you, can have a big impact.
These small gestures can trickle down. They can have the “butterfly effect” where you do one small thing for them and they go home and treat their husband differently, their wife differently, and their kids differently. Then they’re in a good mood and they treat somebody else differently and they help somebody.
One thing that your mom does, is if she starts talking to another mom and she finds out that they have a special needs kid, or if she sees them with a special needs child, she’ll give them one of Addi Jo’s bows, if she has a one on her at the time. (So we have these little hair bows that have Addi Jo’s logo on them for our nonprofit). She’ll give them to the little girl and or to the parent and then almost 100% of the time, she gets a message later saying, “you created a monster…my daughter won’t sleep without her bow. She won’t bathe without her bow. She always has to have that bow. You really brightened her day and it just made her feel so special. Thank you so much!”
So just giving somebody a little bow, just something like that, can go a long way.
I hope that you enjoyed this and I hope that you really take this to heart moving forward because this little rock right here, changed everything.
I love you both.
– Dad
