Forever Seventeen

I woke up this morning with an act of kindness planned for day two.  I decided to put that plan on hold when I received this picture.

Along with so many of my fantastic friends and family members, my friend Brandi and her husband Danny have committed to participating in our challenge this month.  Brandi works at a boarding school on the north shore of Boston that is specifically for students with dyslexia who come from all over the world. Brandi sent me a message this morning saying that after reading my post from Day One she had been feeling very emotional when her reading students came in and she was struck by the fact that each of her students was, in fact, a 17 year old boy.  

Like Adam, one of these boys is a soccer player who was telling Brandi about his game last night. The realization of these kids' ages and interests prompted a desire to share Adam's story with her students.  As the boys listened to her tell them about how a young life, so similar to their own, was cut short in the blink of an eye, they too were moved with emotion.  To Brandi's surprise, the boys didn't just listen, but they responded... by agreeing to join in with us this month, intentionally committing 31 acts of kindness for the 31 days of October.

I don't know if this will make any sense to anyone... but the fact that there are a couple of 17 year old kids running around Boston, blessing people with kindness is truly the most hilarious and healing image in my mind!  My heart is so full, and it was such a blessing to be able to call my mom this morning and let her know that her son is still impacting lives for good.  What that does for a mama who has lost her son... they don't realize it, but that was their first act of kindness.

So, for day two, my new favorite 17 year old boys are gettin' candy.  

I have zero in common with 17 year old boys (except maybe body type, if they're gangly and awkward)

so I wasn't sure what to send them.  I heard that any kind of junk food is a good idea, so I filled a box with all things high fructose corn syrup.  *If any of you boys have a peanut allergy, spoiler alert, this is not going to go well for you.  I also threw in an unnecessary amount of sugar-free hard candies, which are essentially garbage, but are something I often remember Adam eating.  As a wrestler always trying to "make weight," he would eat those disgusting candies all the time, and get ridiculously upset if... sayyyy... someone like a little sister hid all those candies for no particular reason.

I included a letter thanking them, and telling them a little more about my brother and his candies, and how much this means to our family that my brother's "peers" would be involved in honoring his memory, because Adam is, after all, forever seventeen.