“I’m all about justice. If I see something that’s unfair, I feel like I need to make it right.

“In high school, there was this girl who was autistic. Not a lot of people knew it. They just thought she was some weirdo. I was a senior, and she was a freshman or sophomore. She was a skinny little thing, maybe 4-foot-10.

“One day at lunch, these guys threw her tray of food on the floor because she sat at their table. I got in their faces. I told them they shouldn’t be acting like that toward people, regardless of their situation in life. The principal got involved. He thanked me for sticking up for the girl, and the other two students got sent to in-school suspension.

“Then last year around Thanksgiving at the grocery store where I work, I tried to stand up for a co-worker. She’s a very nice person who never raises her voice, and she was getting yelled at by a customer. She’s about 5-foot-2, and this guy was about 6 foot and twice her size in weight.

“She was stocking sausages, and she had a pallet of stuff out there. He was complaining that he couldn’t reach the product that he wanted. He didn’t say, excuse me. He just got mad and started yelling at her. I saw it, and I stepped in. I got yelled at, too, so I yelled back. I kind of told him that she did nothing wrong. I ended up getting in trouble. I got written up for not following procedures.

“I try to treat everybody with kindness. If it doesn’t happen, and I go a little bit too far and act out of character, it’s probably for a good reason. I guess it’s because I’ve been wronged so many times in my own life. When there was no one there to stand up for me, I know what it was like to feel powerless and feel like nobody had my back. So I try to be that person for other people.”

The post She steps in when someone’s treated unfairly appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“Sometimes on Facebook you get to be friends with people you’ve never met in person. Loving art, I met this lady from Tacoma, Washington, named Michelle Osborne.

“She would post pictures showing the progression of her paintings. As I sat up late nights not being able to sleep, I would take her pictures and blow them up. And I saw these faces kind of hidden in the background. I saw a face of a little boy in one. I saw faces of dogs and cats in another. The more I kept looking at her paintings, the more faces I would notice.

“When I commented to her about it, she didn’t even realize they were there. I said, ‘Well, maybe those are your spirits that guide you.’ 

“One day we went to the Houston Zoo, and I took some pictures of animals that I put on Facebook. Michelle saw them and asked what was my favorite animal there. I told her it was this orangutan named Rudy.

“I used to take my grandchildren to the zoo, and they loved interacting with him. He was very inquisitive. I have photos of my grandson showing him a book and my granddaughter kissing him through the glass.

“Michelle said she wanted to paint a picture of Rudy for me, and that’s just what she did. She mailed it to me, and I thought it was just the kindest gesture. For someone I’ve never met to take the time to do that out of the goodness of her heart is so sweet. It really meant a lot to me. No matter how big or how small, no act of kindness goes unnoticed. The kindness of strangers really does go a long way.”

— Peggy Martin

Related:

• Rock art brings joy, comfort during cancer treatment

The post ‘Kindness of strangers really does go a long way’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“Believe it or not, I never wanted to have children. Honestly, I felt like the world was a little too cruel, and I didn’t really want to subject him to that. But I also hadn’t met the person that I wanted to have a kid with yet, either. I love my husband. And when I actually got married to him, I knew I wanted to have kids with him. That was the deciding factor. And my mom, of course. I got a little pressure from the grandparents. ‘Just one, Sonya. I just want one grandchild from you.’”

Now that your son is 4, how do you feel about the world?
“It’s pretty much the same place I thought it was. I’m a very leery person. I shouldn’t say non-trusting, because I do trust a little bit. But I really do have to trust before I let it go or let him go. I’ve seen a lot of things and dealt with a lot of things in my life. It can be cruel out there. But I also see that there’s kindness in the world. One of the reasons I think I’m feeling a little better about everything is because there is goodness. And while I try to see the best, I still have that little guarded feeling sometimes of, ‘I don’t know about this.’ I still think you need to have that.”

— Sonya Stombaugh

The post Mom watches out for son in what can be ‘cruel world’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I had just turned 16 and was living in Puerto Rico when my sister sent for me. She needed my help to take care of her baby boy.

“New York was such a big culture change for me. I was crying day and night. I missed Puerto Rico so much.

“Then one day, I got lost. My sister was living in Manhattan on 124th Street, very close to the train station. She told me that when the baby got up the next morning, I should dress him, feed him and meet her at a bakery in the Bronx. She never told me that there’s an express train and a local train.

“The one I got on was going very fast, and it kept going and going. I thought, what’s happening? When is this train going to stop? When it finally did, I grabbed the baby and got out, but I had no idea where I was.

“I was carrying the baby and crying, when this old Italian man approached me and said, ‘What’s the matter, bambino?’ I could hardly speak any English, but he was able to figure out that I was lost. When he asked me where I was going, I told him the Bronx. And he said, ‘No, no, no. You’ve gone too far. Too far.’ He grabbed my token, took me upstairs and said, ‘Go down there. Get on that train.’ That’s why I got lost. I had taken the wrong train. I finally got on the right one and arrived at the bakery. My sister was there, wondering what had happened to me.

“And to this day, I still remember that old Italian man. I believe he was an angel that God put in front of me. If not for him, I might still be lost in New York.”

— Hilda Mijangos, 75

The post Kindness of stranger helps save the day appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I was an overweight kid, and I was picked on a lot. I wasn’t a very happy child. So somewhere growing up I made a conscious decision to be happy and to speak up when I see anyone else experience pain from bullying or taunting.

“Adults can be worse than kids sometimes. It really floors me. They can say and do hurtful things, and they can throw fits just like kids can. The difference is that usually nobody’s around to tell them, ‘No, that’s not right.’

“I guess that’s why I try to be a kind person. I know what the opposite feels like. I try to teach my kids that as well. I want them to be compassionate, to be thankful, and to love everybody.”

— Shona Saunders

Related:

• Despite challenges, she doesn’t plan to give up
• ‘Chicken boy’ has the last laugh on Thanksgiving

The post She teaches her boys kindness and compassion appeared first on The Baytown Project.