Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With Kindness.

The arrival of a brown paper package is always delightful. My goodness, package deliverers have been the best thing through this entire pandemic -- I would hug every single one of them except, you know, the reason we have so many packages is that we aren't supposed to be out and about and you know, hugging people.

But yesterday a small brown paper package arrived that carried so much more than just its contents. 

A few weeks ago, Benjamin's personal care attendant jammed the joystick as she moved his wheelchair and sent it careening around the room. It rammed Benjamin's bookcase and brought crashing it down. The crash reduced the former bookcase to a pile of wood splayed out like a deck of cards. It scattered books all over his room and reduced his Mickey Mouse collection in to shards.

Thankfully, Benjamin was safely in his lift and unharmed by the crash.

As I cleaned, I contemplated what it would take to replace the broken Mickeys that he has collected since he was young. I was happy to find a couple unscathed. But it was the small snow globe he received at D23, the big Disney conference that he attended twice in his teen years that I knew was irreplaceable. The snow globe was from Toy Story 2 and featured Woody, Jessie and Bullseye. And it was shattered. As I cleaned, I remembered how baby Benjamin loved Woody's Roundup --  a collection of songs about those characters. I remembered that we went through multiple copies of the soundtrack (both in cassette and CD form) because we played it on a loop in the car and wore it out repeatedly!  I worked to pull the remaining shards of glass out of the globe in an effort to at least salvage Woody, Jessie, and the old TV portion of the globe. I wanted to at least salvage that.

But yesterday a small package arrived. The package sent from a friend we only "know" from social media. Eric saw the above photo the day the wheelchair went berserk and read about the loss of the snow globe. He immediately went on a search to find a replacement of the wonderful adorable Woody collectible. 

The package that arrived from Eric yesterday carried so much more than just a snow globe. It carried kindness. It carried joy. It carried memories. 

And it carried the assurance that there are just really really good people all around us.