Stuart from Something to Stu Over has graciously nominated me for The Random Acts of Kindness Award. (RAKA)  Since I didn’t know such an award existed, I was happy to know that others are recognizing the kindness in the world.

Here are the rules:

Tell who you nominate and why.

Copy and share the picture that shows the award, posted above.

Share a paragraph of something that impacted your own life in the way of receiving kindness or how you extended kindness to someone else.

Nominate anyone or share to your own page.  You may choose to participate or not.  Tag or ping back the original person who nominated you, or the original post.

There have been many random acts of kindness in my life, so it is hard to choose only one, but here goes:

I had a stroke on January 23, 2015.  It was a Friday and I was in my classroom, giving exams.  I was diagnosed by the school nurse and sent off to the hospital very quickly by ambulance.  I got a clot busting shot that saved my life, was in ICU and then sent home after four days in the hospital.  When I got home, I was sad because my whole life was changed.  My activities were limited, I had difficulty reading and comprehending my books that I had always enjoyed, and my diet was totally changed.  My husband was doing the best he could with a 1200 mg sodium diet, but most of my food was tasteless, totally bland.  On Wednesday morning, I got up early as usual and looked out the front window to find my daughter’s car in the driveway.  I then went into the bedroom and asked my husband if he knew Hope was here.  He said that she had mentioned coming down but didn’t want me to stress over her driving almost ten hours alone, so she didn’t tell me that she was coming.  Hope left her four children at home (whom she homeschools), her husband and all of her other duties to drive down to help me.  She stayed for over two weeks and helped me to come out of my depression.  She encouraged me to walk, to move around if only a little at a time.  She set a schedule for me so that I ate regularly.  She went to my neurologist appointment with me and asked the questions on my mind that I couldn’t quite verbalize yet.  I think the biggest thing she did for me was take me to the grocery store and show me how to shop according to my new diet restrictions.  She made meals that were tasty and showed my husband how to make them.  I had spaghetti squash casserole for the first time and loved it because she made it spicy with things other than salt.  She looked up recipes for me to have and left them with my husband.  Her gentleness and her demands that I continue to live the best I could helped me to want to continue to live. I will always remember that she just left everything in the middle of winter, drove on icy and snowy roads to come and help me.  When it was time for her to leave, she had to look at the weather in Pennsylvania in order to travel between snow storms.  Here is a picture of my darling daughter who helped me to want to keep on keeping on.  WHAT A BLESSING!  

Now my nominees are anyone who would like to share a Random Act of Kindness.  I hope that many of you will do so because we all need to encourage each other with positivity.  There is goodness in this world!  Let’s all share how someone else’s kindness has affected us!  Please comment on my post when you share so that I can read and be encouraged, also.  😊