Articles

Earth angel

Category: Lifestyle Published on Friday, 08 June 2012 09:12 Written by Debbie Norrell

It feels good to do a good deed.

A friend of mine that I work with just lost her home to a fire. All of us that work with her were very sad and wanted to help in whatever way we could. A few days after the fire she came to me and asked for what she thought was a big favor. She asked if I would go shopping with her or if I would pick up some items for her on my next thrift store trip. I hardly need an excuse to go shopping. Fortunately, she asked me before lunch that day; when lunchtime rolled around I jumped in the car and headed to the South Side Salvation Army.

This lady is a little eccentric in her dress and I knew exactly what to buy for her. I got everything on her wish list except a pair of shoes. For me it was so much fun, when I got back to work with the bag of clothes you would have thought it was Christmas and I was Santa Claus. It made me feel so good to make someone who had gone through such a tragic event happy. Fortunately, she had a good renters insurance policy and her material items will be replaced. Her policy even paid for a temporary place for her to stay.

I advise anyone who rents to invest in renters insurance. Please don’t say you cannot afford it, typical prices are about $150 for the entire year. It is very affordable.

It felt good to help someone. Sometimes we just don’t know how good we have it until you see others suffer.

At work we often feel like a big extended family. In April we lost one of our family members. One of my co-workers was killed in a motorcycle accident on his way home from the Pirate home opener. He was 57 years old. We were devastated. As a special tribute, we put together a scrapbook and I was asked to create a picture book for his family.

When the book came together we saw how much of a family we were. There were pictures from Halloween, Christmas, golf outings and just fun days at work. We spend so much time at work, it is nice to work with pleasant people and to do fun things. We received thank you notes from several members of the family and they so appreciated the photo book and scrapbook. It made us all feel good that we could do something to make the family happy.

It doesn’t take much to make someone smile or to bring a little happiness into someone’s life. The gesture could be as small as giving someone a compliment in the elevator or giving directions to someone who appears to be lost. My friend at work probably didn’t realize how thrilled I was to do the shopping for her. I was also honored to do the photo book. Neither gesture will bring back what they lost, but they will know how much we care.

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