I know this is a stressful and painful time for many families right now, and my heart and prayers are with those who are suffering. As I write during this time period, I want to handle our own current events with a more impressionist hand, and hopefully leave a picture that casts more light in certain areas, while neglecting the deepest shadows for now. While I have been ministering to a myriad of emotions for myself and concerns for our family, I have found that throughout this past month, I have been blessed with a great deal of kindness and I want to honor those involved.
There can be no kindness greater than that shown to us by Emily and Casandra, who have both affirmed to the agency overseeing their therapy programs that our home is where they still want to work. I realize there may be differing perspectives on allowing therapists (who have been deemed essential workers in Arizona) to come into a home if one of the members has risk factors. However, for myself, as the person with the risk factors, I can honestly say my breathing is in a much better place when my kiddos are happy and have their needs being met. To both of you, as you return to your regular hours this upcoming week, I can never thank you enough for everything you do to help our little man progress and grow.
While I was working on making masks and trying to find supplies to provide the safest possible environment for those who choose to work with our son, I received an unexpected text from a company that had provided Tony physical therapy services for three sessions only many months ago. The CEO was offering gloves to anyone whose therapists needed them. I had texted back, letting this individual know that we hadn’t been clients of theirs for many months, and that while we appreciated the kind offer, we expected this company to reserve those for clients that were actually current. I was told that they are an organization that cares, and if I needed them, they would be shipped right away, and they came two days later. I have blocked out the name of the agency and the CEO for this public post, but this was a greatly appreciated kindness indeed and certainly no small thing to me or our therapists.
A matter that is smaller, and perhaps off-topic for this blog, is a matter touching mostly me alone. Many months ago, I had purchased some CBD oil from a company called Lazarus Naturals. The CliffsNotes on that is that I am very allergic to their ingestible CBD tinctures. Some day we may try CBD tinctures with Tony for his anxiety, but this is a matter we need to coordinate with his medical team, and I hadn’t purchased anything from them for several months. I do however, still get e-mails from them. The day after I received some information about what therapy supports in our home would look like for a period of time as everyone worked to move into our new reality as cautiously as possible, I got an e-mail from Lazarus stating that anybody going through a hard time during these stressful times could contact their support team for a listening ear.
As I sometimes do, I fired off an e-mail letting them know how cool that was, sharing a very tiny bit about the weights on my heart, and that all I would ask of them was to reach out to their local healthcare workers with some TLC. A member of their team and I had several exchanges, and I thought the matter over with…until I received a package from them with a personalized note from the rep I had been chatting with on-line. To the best of my knowledge, they have no idea I write this humble little blog…the rep in question was just being kind to me.
And it was a kindness I very much appreciated. I certainly could not be considered a good or even a loyal customer by the numbers, and many businesses would not have felt like my past purchase history with Lazarus warranted any sort of gesture but a return e-mail…if that. For those of you that don’t remember what happened when Amazon accused me of writing reviews for compensation (those of you who have been reading with us for quite some time already know this, but it is a very easy matter for me to prove that I most certainly was not): I had spent what felt like a blood curdling amount of our money at their business and was still told that if I contacted them again about the matter they may not respond to me.
I love it when a business shows they have heart, and while that is the sort of gesture that would earn loyalty if I were on ongoing customer of Lazarus, mainly I was just touched because team Lazarus had no data on their end to even remotely suggest they’d get any return on investment from me for their care package. I cannot say right now what it meant to me in that moment to have someone somewhere do something kind for me that they absolutely didn’t have to do. Each of you may shop where you like, and buy what you will. This, as I said, was a personal matter for me that lifted me up when I was in a darker place.
The very next week, I got a call about Casandra coming back and then the offer for gloves. The week after, approval for Emily to resume full hours. With so much going on, I know that I have been blessed still with a great deal of kindness, both great and small.
