Day 9 & 10: Look for the Helpers

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

— Mr. Rogers

My two oldest daughters, Annalee (13) and Marlie (12) left Friday to go to the Adirondacks for a long weekend retreat with their youth group. Being 12 and 13 isn't easy. In a world where junior high girls are told that "real women have curves" and they must also have a "thigh gap" it is no wonder that girls in junior high can feel unstable! Society is a fickle turd, and the pressure that our kids face every day is overwhelming. They are supposed to fit in, but also be completely unique... go against the flow, but in a way that's charming and adorable, without being weird or acting like you care. Definitely don't act like you care! But, I mean... care enough to take a perfect selfie or else you're a total piece of garbage, but make sure the selfie looks like you didn't try. It'll take at least an hour to get a good, effortless selfie. You can have fat, but it has to be miraculously located in the right places so that you are curvy. If you have fat in the wrong place, starve yourself. Unless that makes your boobs small. It's better to be a little fat than to lose your boobs altogether. It's best to look like you have no makeup on, so get really good at makeup because it will take at least an hour of applying makeup to look like you aren't wearing any makeup. Also, your eyebrows should be somehow square at the edges. By the time you get good at giving yourself square eyebrows, that will be the dumbest thing you could possibly do and you will have to learn to make your eyebrows a hexagon or something. And eyebrows shouldn't ever under any circumstances look like they are made of actual hair, they should look like they were airbrushed on using a Kardashian eyebrow-shaped stencil. Also, just say no to pale skin, orrrr dark skin. You have to be mocha - regardless of your genetics, this is a non-negotiable. Also, play soccer from the time you are a fetus or you will not have a chance in the 7th grade. By then, players are practically in retirement. So 1) be born, and 2) start a sport immediately or you're a loser. 

That's a small taste of the pressure and unrealistic expectations that our kids face every day... and that's just the girls! There are academic pressures, social pressures, familial expectations, societal and cultural messages... it's an intense and scary world out there. Like Mr. Rogers, our kids need to look for the helpers. Days 9 & 10 were all about thanking the people who are there to help kids in junior high as they navigate life.

We brought Panera gift cards to the six youth leaders who spent the most time with my girls this weekend on the retreat.

I also bought some flowers and candy for a friend who took the time to step away with one of my girls when she was feeling down. It's not easy to send my precious newborn babies away for a whole weekend, but it helps knowing that they have good friends to listen, love and encourage them when they need it most. 

Bonus Update: We have located Frank - the hero of Tom's childhood misfortunes as told in THIS VIDEO! Tom has been working around the clock at his regular job, and on a house we need to repair and sell as quickly as possible so we have not met with him yet but we look forward to connecting with Frank and will keep you all posted! 

Day 8: Loving & Losing Imperfect People

My kindnesses for Day 8 are my least favorite. Today, I grieved alongside sisters that lost their brother and parents who lost their son. This was not the first funeral service I have sat through for someone whose life ended as a result of a drug overdose, nor was this our first family member to die as a result of drug addiction. On both sides of the family Tom and I have family members who battle drug or alcohol addiction, and today we said goodbye to Tom's cousin who died as a result of an intentional overdose.

For Day 8, the kids wrote letters to someone we love who is battling addiction and I spent time connecting with her. I reminded her that she is loved, that she is stronger than she realizes, and that she is not alone.

My brother's death was a tragedy. But, in a lot of ways my family is very fortunate. We can freely talk about what happened to Adam and (generally) there is no judgement, no shame, no assumptions about Adam's character. This is a luxury that many families do not know. Oftentimes, when people lose their loved ones as a result of a drug overdose or suicide, there is a cloud of shame that lingers over the surviving family members. The stigma surrounding the circumstances of these deaths often leads to secrecy and self-blame.

For my last act of kindness on Day 8, I want to de-stigmatize the topic of suicide and overdose so that survivors of suicide loss can grieve freely and openly, without shame. No matter how your loved one dies, it is painful and real and complex. Your loss is as valid as mine, your loved one was as loved as mine, your imperfect person was as special to you as my imperfect person was to me. And you are not alone.

Suicide and intentional/unintentional opioid overdoses are on the rise. There are lots of signs and symptoms to look out for and ways you can support an addict in your life. If you have already lost a loved one to suicide, mental health problems, or addiction there is a lot of online support out there. I guess I just want to free up anyone who might feel like they need permission to grieve just as fiercely and publicly as anyone else. Regardless of a persons' imperfect choices or circumstances of their death, each and every loss is profound. After all, there isn't anyone among us apart from God who has ever lost a perfect child.

Day 7: Videoblog featuring Tom's 2nd grade stories

We are one week in and #AdamsActs is on a mission to find and reward the unexpected kindness of Tom's long lost classmate. Please help us in FINDING FRANK! 

AdamsActs is on a mission to reward the kindness of Tom's long lost classmate.

Days 5 & 6: Sugar is All the Food Groups

When my sister BethAnn and I were little, one of our older siblings, Kristin or Adam would babysit us. When they did, they would serve one meal and one meal only. They would make an entire pan of brown sugar toast. What is brown sugar toast you ask? Well, first of all, it's perfection. Second of all, it's America's health crisis on a plate. In honor of Adam, I introduced my friends Lexi and Ben to a world where baking a thick layer of butter and brown sugar on an english muffin makes sense. And as part of my #AdamsActs for all of you, I now present:

Recipe For Brown Sugar Toast (or English Muffin)
1) Lightly toast the bread product of your choice. It doesn't really matter what you choose, the bread is just a vehicle to move that sugar into your person. If you make this correctly you won't know there is bread involved.
2) Heavily butter lightly toasted sugar transporter.
3) Add a hearty layer of brown sugar.
4) Nope, that's a reasonable amount. You'll need more.
5) Return to toaster oven or broiller until brown sugar goes through the melting phase and emerges as a hardened sugar crust.

Voila! Diabetes!
Source: Maybe my mom? I don't know. She should probably get the credit and/or be mom-shamed for allowing this to take place in her home.

In addition to this horrifying yet delicious breakfast, I also brought some homemade corn chowder to my friend Heather. She has had sick kiddos for a few days and her husband Josh is being all self-disciplined and only eating locusts and honey or something like that so I figured that Heather needed something warm, comforting and most importantly... made by someone else. Josh and Heather are a foster family and when I think of people who are on the front lines of loving people like Jesus, it's definitely them. You can learn more about their life HERE on their blog - which is insightful and encouraging and challenging at the same time. 

When you have kids that come from hard places, you measure "good days" very differently than most people. I know this from personal experience. Being a mom of a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder (which I share about HERE), there was a long time that "a good day" for us meant that mommy didn't get any fresh injuries. So, when Heather and her adorable children have good days - I really want to celebrate with them. When they have bad days, I want to be an encouragement because I know what hard days can look like in the world of foster care and adoption. And when they have the stomach flu, I really want to stay far, far away. But also send soup. 

I spent all day doing hair and makeup for 7 people in a wedding this evening, including the beautiful bride to whom I gave a discount for Day 6 of #AdamsActs. I also bought some materials for something I have planned for another day, but you'll just have to wait on that one. 

I have been on the receiving end of #AdamsActs this week as well. One follower mailed me a life changing pie from Georgia. It was like Adam's brown sugar toast crust made it's way onto a pie. Yes please. Hundreds of you have supported me by purchasing my devotional - which makes me ugly cry myself to sleep out of gratitude and affection for all of you. My friend Melissa came in from NYC and gathered her friends Jess and Peter, and cousin Tori, and forced them into manual labor at our old house that we need to sell like yesterday. My friends covered all the food groups: Nan brought my family donuts, Courtney brought us cookies, Lisa brought gluten-free cookies for London (my little celiac/hashimoto's baby.) Cheesecake from Danielle. Lexi and my mother-in-law Cindy tag teamed watching my five kids today so I could work the wedding. Cindy made me eggs. Lexi lent me this computer I am typing on because Tom was out of town presenting at a nerd conference... eh hem, I mean a technology conference and he had to take our only computer with him.

While he was away, I received my favorite act of kindness this week. This photo of my husband doing a presentation on team approaches to online nerd development... eh hem, I mean course development. In the middle of his presentation he shamelessly plugs #AdamsActs!! That's my man! 

Day 4: In Defense of Living

I found out in the middle of the night that Adam had been shot.

My grandma was in town visiting from the Detroit area and when she came to visit she often slept in my bed with me. I loved it because we would talk and say our bedtime prayers together and then she would gently tickle my back to help me fall asleep. The night Adam was shot, I can clearly remember her waking me saying, "I need a prayer partner." 

There was so much confusion and misinformation before we learned what actually happened that night, but in those early hours we mistakenly believed that Adam was shot by a police officer while toilet-papering a house. When my grandma woke me up to pray, I remember walking through my house looking for some sort of clue about what was happening. I remember walking into my mom's bedroom, knowing she wasn't there, and seeing her deodorant and toothbrush in the middle of her bed. There was no cap on the deodorant, that was on the floor. 

It was that small detail that caused the first bit of panic to clutch inside my chest. That image of my mom in a frenzied rush, washing up so she could fly out the door to get to the hospital, plays in my mind like a movie to this day. I picture her just throwing her toothbrush down, realizing in that moment that nothing else mattered, grabbing a sweatshirt and running to the car. I don't know how a mama ever gets back to a place where anything else ever matters again.

I didn't want to wake up my sister, BethAnn. My grandma would go back home eventually and maybe she could bring this nightmare with her. But, if I woke up BethAnn then it was all going to be real. This is how an 11-year-old processes trauma. This is how I was stuck for a really long time. When I started doing #AdamsActs 6 years ago it was as if I gave that little girl inside me permission to grieve fully and out loud for the first time. Six years (of opening up and processing) later, that little girl is almost a grown up. I feel that progress and healing in such a real way, I can't adequately describe it. 

I went so many years stuck in that little girl space when it came to this trauma that I made a lot of childish decisions. I was self-protective and hurtful and was looking for relief in all the wrong places. But the place that was "stunted" the longest was the ability to experience true and deep joy. Out of solidarity with death, I was prevented from truly and deeply savoring life. 

As a self-proclaimed empath, I feel things wholly and intensely. I feel and carry others' hurts and afflictions as if they are my own. I can easily allow myself to become paralyzed by the weight of these burdensome emotions. The past six years of honoring Adam's life have helped me to sever the ties of solidarity to his death. 

I recently discovered a poem by Jack Gilbert in which he describes all the great suffering in the world and still, somehow, the joy. He writes of the women's laughter in the harsh streets of Calcutta or the cages of Bombay. His words remind me of the obligation to live, to find joy and a stubborn gladness.

“ We must have the stubbornness
to accept our gladness
in the ruthless furnace of this world. ”

— Jack Gilbert

For Day #4, I allowed a stubborn gladness to peek through the logistics of my life. When my to-do list was a thousand miles long, I stopped and found joy in relationships. I put aside my chores and I sat down to visit with two of my favorite friends. I slowed down at the grocery store to chat with the cashier and bought her a candy bar and I said "yes" to two interviews that I didn't really "have time for." We hosted our community group in our home and we facilitated honest discussion about love and life and growth. I chose people over projects, and I got less done but in the ruthless furnace of the world, I chose delight. And according to Jack...

“We must risk delight.”

— Jack Gilbert

For more information about my process of allowing God to transform my grief into something beautiful and positive, you can listen to my interview with Donna Harris of Constantly Under Construction HERE or download my devotional e-book HERE. 

Day 3: For Sean.

In the past couple of years doing #AdamsActs, I have had the opportunity to share our story at my kids' schools. It's always an incredible opportunity to stand in front of a gymnasium filled with kids who are still blank slates in a lot of ways and get them all fired up about out-loving and out-serving one another. It's my favorite.

The best moment during one of these school visits was in my daughter Marlie's classroom. She was in fifth grade at the time and after explaining (in an age-appropriate way) the story behind #AdamsActs, I asked the kids to write down their own sad thing that they carry around with them every day. Some kids wrote down their parents divorce, the death of a pet or grandparent, one child wrote about having an incarcerated parent. It was some heavy stuff. I challenged them to keep their sad thing in their pocket during the month of October and every time they felt really sad, they could do an act of kindness for someone else. We talked about how it was okay to feel sad, and no matter how kind you are, the sad thing won't ever go away but that kindness can turn the sad thing into a powerful thing for good too.

Then one brave little boy, Sean, raised his hand and said that he knows how I feel because his brother died too. He shared that his twin brother passed away and that he is still very sad about it every day. This sweet boy and I both cried right there on the spot over having such a terrible thing in common. 

Now Sean is in junior high and he runs cross country with my two oldest daughters, Annalee and Marlie. I wasn't sure if he would remember that moment, but I haven't forgotten. For Day #3, I wanted to let Sean know that I remembered our moment and I remembered his grief. I gave him a Gatorade and some candy for after his race, and I wrote a card telling him how brave he was for sharing his story, and that I was thinking of both of our brothers today.

I remember being in 7th grade just a year after Adam was killed. I remember people asking me if I was really still sad about it. I remember when I would talk about Adam, some people would whisper that I was just "trying to get attention." And for a long time I stopped talking about him. But, Sean and I know better. Kids like Sean and I are still sad. Sean and I don't want that kind of attention. What Sean and I want is one more day with our brothers, our buddies. And if we don't get that, then Sean and I will keep remembering them. We will keep mustering the courage to raise our hand in front of all our friends to tell the story about our sad thing.  

Day 2: A Little Soap Goes a Long Way

Like most of you, I woke up this morning to learn of the devastating news out of Las Vegas. When I learned of the horrendous mass shooting, I asked the typical questions: Who was this guy? What could possibly drive a person to do something so deplorable? How can I help? How can anyone possibly help during a time like this?

My natural inclination is to feel overwhelmed with empathy and crippled by a sense of helplessness. My knee-jerk reaction is to feel really dumb, just flat out silly for trying to fill this dark world with light and love when times like these seem to prove that the world is, quite simply, too far gone. My impulse is to pack up this hope of mine and to stuff all my feelings with so much pie.

Then I checked my messages. And I read your notes of encouragement and thanks.  I read all the kind words many of you had to say about Adam. I saw that my blog has had over 15,000 views in anticipation of - and in response to - #AdamsActs. I saw all the invoices of people who bought my little devotional. I saw the Facebook, Instagram and Twitter posts. All the shares and comments and hashtags. And guys, my heart was full of hope again.

My #AdamsActs today weren’t anything life-changing or grandiose. I did some small, simple things that anyone can do. I chose to start with something simple because I don’t want people to feel overwhelmed or intimidated going into this month of kindness. Being purposeful and intentional is the point, not grandiosity. Besides, small kindnesses are sustainable throughout the year so cultivating the habit of making small gestures ultimately leads to more kindness in the long run!

The first thing I did was buy conditioner. See, I told you anyone could do this. There is a line of haircare products (I get them at Target) by a company called SoapBox and when you purchase one of their items you do an act of kindness. Here’s how… the company’s mission is to donate a bar of soap every time a product is purchased. There is a little hope code you can enter to see the impact each purchase makes. It’s pretty great! And such a small, easy change to make. (For all you curly haired peeps out there, the conditioner is actually really great and works on all the various ethnic textures we got happening up in here.) Handwashing saves lives, especially in developing countries where access to healthcare and education about healthy sanitation practices are limited.

The second thing I did was buy some other stuff. (I’m seriously low on some essentials ok.) Instead of using the regular Amazon site to restock on whatever it is you need, check out Amazon Smile. It’s basically the same thing as Amazon, except you can select the charitable organization of your choice and Amazon will donate 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible products. It is a very simple change to make if you are already an Amazon shopper. There are a lot of organizations to choose from and you can change your choice at any time.

The last small thing I did was send a quick note to a photographer buddy who took some amazing photographs at my friends' Ben and Lexi's wedding. He is a great guy, with a lovely family, he's super talented and I really wanted to encourage him. Plus it gives me an excuse to share his amazing work with you:

Photo cred: Samuel Maisonet Photography 

And if you want a little bonus treat, let's just zoom right in on what Sam had to deal with... my daughter in stage 4 of the grief process that her "Aunt Lexi" is getting married.

I guess she thought things wouldn't be the same after they got married... so she sobbed audibly through the entire photo shoot and half the reception. Sam was a champ though and the photos still turned out beautifully! 

Buying soap on Amazon Smile or sending a note to encourage someone is not going to directly help the victims in Las Vegas or change the world, that's true. Still, I am going to fight against that feeling that I can't make a real impact or that I am silly for wanting people to have soap or clean water or a kind word from a friend. I will do a million tiny little things to extend kindness to strangers this month and for the rest of my life because the alternative is to do nothing. And I will never, ever do nothing. Especially when I could just as easily do something small, but still very kind. In light of the hundreds of lives that have been permanently altered by the nightmare that unfolded in Las Vegas, it suddenly feels silly not to send a note or to share our soap. The small things may be simple, but they are also sacred and powerful and contagious. Perhaps the small, insistent acts of kindness are the best chance we have of preventing hate in the first place. 

If you have not purchased the 31 Day Devotional Guide to Greater Kindness, it's not too late to join in! You can purchase it here for $1.99