Meet some local residents who take kindness to another level

I discovered my first firefly on a sultry and quiet June evening. It appeared in my peripheral vision, so at first I wasn’t sure if that was it. But then another lit a pinprick of darkness, then another. Before I knew it, they were everywhere.

It has been so with kindness lately. I noticed a gesture – my mother’s neighbors were filling an empty bed with zinnias for them – and began to interfere with others.

My friend Betsy Weber Hurst, for example, is a very busy broker who still finds time to knit intricate, beautiful blankets and give them away as gifts. About ten years ago she made this number for friends of her twin daughters when they graduated from high school. She continues to knit them for her family, for friends, for friends’ children and now for their grandchildren – a number that has far exceeded 80.

And the thought occurs to me that every act of kindness is its own little firefly, a bright spot in the sky just as the world begins to darken. Which, dare I say, we could all use almost, well, anytime.

At this very second, I open my hands and open my heart to release and share my own fireflies of goodness. We hope they will help light up your skies. More so, that they help you see – in your peripheral vision or straight ahead – what is around us all the time.

Barbara Berner from Irving often writes letters to strangers and loved ones.  She spends about an hour writing each one.Barbara Berner from Irving often writes letters to strangers and loved ones. She spends about an hour writing each one.(Andy Berner)

The letter writer

Every Monday, Irving’s Barbara Berner sends handwritten notes to at least 14 people, most of whom she has never met. You and I know each other through the Greyhound Adoption League of Texas, from which we have both fostered and adopted dogs.

“I am terrible on the phone, but I always wrote letters,” she says.

She first wrote to her own mother, Fay Book, who lived in an assisted living facility about two miles from Barbara and her husband Andy. They saw Mrs. Book several times a week, including her Friday night Sabbath meal, and Barbara called her every day. But Barbara says, “She just loved mail, so I wrote to her several times a week.”

She started writing to other residents. When friends mentioned relatives in nursing homes, Barbara wrote to them too. Ms. Book died in 2013 at the age of 95; others have also died because most of the recipients are seniors.

But the love that is shown through letters knows no age limit. When Barbara’s great-nephew Mason was diagnosed with leukemia, she wrote to him every day. And since he died last November at the age of 11, she has made a point of writing to his sister Madeline at least twice a week.

Every letter she writes is personal; Each letter takes at least an hour. That doesn’t include cutting scrapbook pages she buys in hobby stores into note cards and reconstructing envelopes that were previously intended for the trash.

“You’d think I could rip out all of the letters in an hour,” she says, “but for some reason it takes longer. I’m trying to write something about when the month changes to give them a time frame. Or something about the weather or a vacation and then a stupid joke. “

Sometimes people write back to her what she values ​​but doesn’t expect.

“It’s just something I do,” she says. “There is just something appreciative about getting mail.”

Yeronica Craddock's positive attitude and friendly demeanor have made her a customer favorite at Roly Poly Sandwiches on Mockingbird Lane.  “Do you want someone to love you?  Love her, ”she says.  Yeronica Craddock’s positive attitude and friendly demeanor have made her a customer favorite at Roly Poly Sandwiches on Mockingbird Lane. “Do you want someone to love you? Love her, ”she says. “Show compassion, whatever your race, age, or what you look like.”(Lola Gomez / photographer)

The sandwich maker

In the time it takes to place an order at Roly Poly Sandwiches on Mockingbird Lane, Garland’s Yeronica Craddock learns more about a customer than most people learn from each other over dinner in one evening. They tell her about the books they write, about family matters, about their children.

She listens, she cares, she remembers.

“Some people call before they come in to make sure she’s working,” says her boss, Roly Poly owner Guy Bellaver. “If you order a sandwich and come back in two years, she would know what you ate and what your dog and daughter were called, and she would ask how they are. Then she would tell you that you look great in this green shirt because she knows that green is your favorite color. “

Yeronica smiles when she hears this. She just does what is taken for granted and what she wants everyone to do: Treat everyone who comes in your way as you would like to be treated yourself.

“You definitely do that,” says Yeronica, who works every day except Tuesdays. “You think positively, you think happily, and something good will come of it. God puts people in my way. If I’m here for someone, it will come back. “

She attributes this kind attitude to her late mother, God, and the way she treats positive people like her customers and co-workers.

“Do you want someone to love you? Love her, ”she says. “Show compassion, regardless of race, age, or what you look like.”

Gary Graham (left) and Jeffrey Michael help neighbor Jane Barker plant flowers.Gary Graham (left) and Jeffrey Michael help neighbor Jane Barker plant flowers.(Leslie Barker / special contributor)

The neighbours

My mother, Jane Barker, is an avid gardener who can’t resist an empty flower bed. On a 90-plus-degree Sunday in June, when she realizes the round one on the corner is just filled with dirt, she plucks a potted impatiens plant from her porch and sets off to plant it. Her hip is still bothering her after the operation 15 months ago, so her gait is slow and not exactly stable. Nevertheless, she made it to the corner and began to prick the rock-hard ground with her trowel.

Step into two neighbors in your Dallas neighborhood: Gary Graham, whose apartment is closest to the flowerbed, and Jeffrey Michael, who lives across the street. They catch Mom and gently take the impatience out of her hands. Jeffrey quickly provides two chairs, a table, and a glass of lemonade with lemon, while Gary goes to the nearby nursery and returns with three flat zinnias.

Jeffrey is the planter. He loosens the roots of each flower before sticking them into the holes he’s digging. “Jane, what do you mean? Do you want all yellow, white and orange together or should I mix them up? You are the boss.”

While he is planting, he and Gary talk too. Until today they really didn’t know each other, except to say hello. They learn that they have a common interest in wrestling; both have connections with the University of Oklahoma and enjoy playing guitar.

When the zinnias are planted, Jeffrey goes home and returns with his instrument. He serenades Mama and slightly replaces “Jane” for the name that might originally have been in that verse. For her part, mom can’t stop smiling and keeps thanking them.

“Jane, this is so much fun darling,” says Jeffrey. “Without you, none of us would be here.”

Dude, Sandy Smith Sweeney's dog, was a huge hit with Sweeney (center) and her parents Ann and Jerry Smith.Dude, Sandy Smith Sweeney’s dog, was a huge hit with Sweeney (center) and her parents Ann and Jerry Smith.(Jason Janik / special article)

The new dog parents

Richardson’s Sandy Smith Sweeney posted on our neighborhood Facebook page a few weeks ago that a small dog was licking her legs as she was taking her morning walk. She posted photos: Does anyone know this dog? Nobody did. Sandy fed her scrambled eggs and took them to a pet store to see if she had a microchip. She didn’t have that.

The next stop was the vet for an examination and vaccinations. Then Sandy bought her dog food and chew toys, enrolled her in obedience school (which Sandy calls “senior school”). She gave her a name – Dude – because that’s what she called her before she found out the little blue heeler is female.

In addition to her morning walk, Sandy now walks Dude at least two more times a day, often while on business phone calls. Dude comes along when Sandy visits her parents, Jerry and Ann Smith, who they adore.

Sandy and her husband Dennis haven’t had a dog since they died a few years ago. Recently Dennis said he’d like one more; Sandy wasn’t sure. But when Dude started following her that fateful morning, she took it as “the universe manifesting”.

Often times when she takes Dude out, neighbors stop her to ask if this is the dude they read about.

“There was just so much encouragement – not just from my family, but honestly from Facebook and Nextdoor posts too. It felt like everything had conspired to make me keep her and fall in love. “

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