Kindness

Kindness is one of those things I don't take lightly. When someone is kind to me or my husband or my dog or a stranger on the street or I simply see an act of kindness taking place, I really take it in. It means something. True kindness is one thing I love to witness. I think it's why I love being a blogger in this adoption community - I get to witness all sorts of kindness. (Mostly) women helping (mostly) women get through this crazy process with their sanity in tact (for the MOST part). It's awesome.

So I've been meaning to blog about an act of kindness that really touched me recently. I mentioned in a post a while back that I had been introduced through a mutual friend to a cool chick named Katie, who as it turned out, is also adopting from Ethiopia. Katie and I became fast friends and began to email about our journeys. Hers has been rough, she and her husband have had one of the tougher times getting things rolling, through no fault of their own.

Anyway, Katie and I mostly emailed and then spoke by phone one day at a particularly rough spot along her path.

A week later, I got a package from Katie - inside, was a beautiful handmade basket from Ethiopia! My first thought was it was gorgeous. My second was where did she get this from? Well, Katie lives in Chicago, but ironically as we had discovered, her parents moved 5 hours south to Edwardsville, IL, where I am from and where most of my immediate family still lives. And even more "coincedentally", this fairly small town of Edwardsville now has a global gift type of store and that is where she found this lovely basket from Ethiopia.

I found the irony and beauty of even meeting Katie, then finding out her parents live in the same town as my parents, then receiving a basket from Ethiopia via Edwardsville from her in the mail, out of the blue, to be just so cool...and kind.

Thanks, Katie!