Faith in Humanity Restored
The life of a mom is an exhausting thing. Some weeks are busier than others and sometimes they’re filled with offsetting news more than others. Last week for me was one of those weeks where I feel like I was going non stop and the news was not beaming with sunshine and rainbows.
It was still good and full of joy because I have amazing family and friends but at the end of the week, when I was already teetering on my last leg of strength, I heard a news story about two little boys who died in a fire after being left home alone. Yes, that is horrific and every parent’s worse nightmare. However the worst part was that their aunt, who had left the house with their mother, told the news reporter that she was just worried about getting into the house to get her purse because her food stamps were in it. And – then she laughed and smiled while the camera panned to the boy’s mother having to be carried away in hysterics.
Somewhere in that news story my hope for humanity took a pretty deep hit.
However this weekend it was slowly but surely restored.
My girls have been secretly trying to have a lemonade stand for months. I keep catching them with a homemade booth at the end of the driveway with homemade signs pitching whatever they could find around the house to sell. Every time they get in trouble for it because usually it’s my personal stuff they’re trying to hawk and also because they’re not allowed to be at the street by themselves. And yet they continue to do it and beg us to let them have a lemonade stand. So Saturday morning, during our garage sale, I surprised them with their very own lemonade stand. I made them set the price at 10 cents, which they were highly displeased with but I didn’t really see them having that much business. Our street is very quiet with little traffic. However not only did people coming to the garage sale buy lemonade, others driving down the street would brake, reverse and hop out of their car right in front of our driveway just to buy a cup of lemonade and then get back in their car and go on their way. That just blew me away. People took time to give little girls a dream that those people didn’t even realize they were fulfilling. Other people just gave them money and refused the lemonade while reminiscing about their children having lemonade stands when they were little. It was a simple yet amazing thing they did for our girls.
It doesn’t stop there. Saturday night we have a horrible storm that kept me awake, loving on whining dogs, while debating if we should bring the older two girls downstairs to sleep by us. (The little one was already hogging my pillow and blankets curled up next to her daddy in our bed.) Everything turned out just fine in the end except that we were without power for a few hours afterwards. Our town was a mess, there was blinking lights and hundreds of people without power out on the streets looking for something warm for breakfast and hopefully a little coffee to go along with it. We even got out and did some shopping in a nearby town just to beat the boredom. Thats when I noticed the huge number of Centerpoint Energy trucks in our town. Men and women that work for Centerpoint Energy were giving up their Sunday with their family to come restore power to our family. I thought it might be strange to go give them a hug so I resisted but I am thankful that they worked countless hours today to give us lights tonight and kept our food from spoiling before the refrigerator could get too warm.
Saturday night before the storm a huge storage facility for boats and RV’s caught on fire nearby and the fire and explosions from gas tanks went all night through the storm and into mid morning today. I saw on the news that over 100 firemen from our area worked all night and day to get the fire taken care of. Coming back from shopping this afternoon I pulled up next to a firetruck coming from the direction of the fire and in the back you could see all the firemen asleep, leaned against the windows and seats. They worked so hard to protect the fire from spreading and to put it out, risking their lives and exhausting themselves in the process. It reminded me of our friends brother, Robert Garner, who did loose his life this spring serving as a Houston firefighter during a large hotel fire. I am thankful for all firefighters, especially those exhausted and hard working ones.
It’s good to know that for every one rotten apple in the world, there’s so many other ones who still take time to stop for little girl’s lemonade stands, work tirelessly to bring power back to people and who run towards danger with impossible strength. It’s those people who constantly renew my hope in humanity.
If you would like to donate to the Robert Garner Scholarship Fund, to benefit future firefighters in memory of Robery Garner, you can find more information about that here.
Nicki Woo says
I’ve been thinking of you all weekend, and your kids and that lemonade stand. . .wondering if they made a bundle, glad to hear it went well. . .and always glad to hear your doing well, even if you’re tired. . .i hope you get some rest soon, but it does make for an interesting blog. ..don’t you think:0???
Bobbie says
Thank you! I know you’re in halloween hog heaven right now. Does Mr. Woo have to give you air and little blue pills the day after halloween?