Human Kindness #11: A Mother’s Love

Welcome back to Human Kindness! If you haven’t already, please check out Human Kindness: Introduction for the background to this blog series! These stories are NOT all my own, they have been submitted to me for the purpose of this series and are a collection from some of the kindest people I know or who have contacted me to share their story.

I am ALWAYS on the lookout for kindness stories, so please do get in touch if you have one, there is a chance for you to submit yours at the end of this post (and I will always keep them anonymous). As always, if you’d like to receive these stories directly to your inbox every Monday morning, sign up to the mailing list at the end of this post.

I know this one will resonate with all the parents out there. It’s a beautiful display of the love and care, and what a parent will do for their child.

“I had been watching my mum-in-law saving pound coins in a jar for months. Whenever she got change of a pound coin, most of the time it would go straight into the jar. The jar had been getting fuller and fuller for months and I noticed one day that it was almost full. It was a big jar, and I was so excited for her to treat herself, imagining how much must be in there and wondering what she might buy with it.

Unfortunately, around this time, my sister-in-law was diagnosed with cancer. It was a complete shock to everybody as she was very young. It was devastating and frightening in equal measure, and she started treatment almost immediately. My mother-in-law walked straight out of her job for three months to take full care of her, no hesitation and no questions asked. She attended every single appointment, every meeting, and accompanied my sister-in-law for every chemotherapy session to ensure she wasn’t alone going through such a gruelling process. She was by my sister-in-law’s side the entire time.

She used every single one of those pound coins in the jar to pay for the car parking for every appointment so that my sister-in-law who was already going through a horrific time and unable to work wouldn’t have to be even more out of pocket. Even though she had left her job temporarily and wasn’t working so she could care for my sister-in-law, every last coin (and likely more) went on the car parking. Of course, it’s only a pound coin and in the grand scheme of things was the least of their worries, but it was the way there was no hesitation whatsoever to use that money for this purpose, in what was already an awful, emotional time.

It’s funny what your brain recalls from times like these. Aside from the general turmoil that comes with watching someone you love battling such an awful disease, I will always remember watching the jar get emptier and emptier and thinking how sad it was that the money she had so dedicatedly saved had to be spent in this way, especially given everything else they had to deal with. I mentioned to her recently how I’ve never forgotten the kindness she showed through that period and I’ve never forgotten that she had to use all that money. Her response? “Nothing is more important than your children”.

Have you experienced an act of kindness recently? Maybe you have done something for somebody that you haven’t yet shared for fear of being judged to be “bragging” or you have been on the receiving end of a kindness that somebody has shown you. My inbox is ALWAYS open for your kindness stories so please submit them!

Stories will be treated with discretion and published anonymously at all times, and I will share as much or as little information as you wish. Message me using the form below and I’ll be sure to feature your story in an upcoming post.

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