Days 5 & 6: Narcoleptic Neighbors and Train Rides All Around

I forgot to mention that on weekends, I sometimes won't blog. #walkofshame

I assure you, though, that I am still doing #AdamsActs each day, and am continually blown away by all the ideas people are coming up with!  It is particularly challenging to blog over the weekends because all the kids are home and it is  mass chaos  our treasured family time.

Our friends from Finland are still here visiting, so among our intentional acts of kindness, I will include hosting a foreign family of four and showing them the American way of life.  Staying with a family of seven probably isn't giving them an accurate picture of normal American life, not to mention the fact that I haven't done anything normal since 1988.  Still, we have opened our home to them and I do think that counts as a kindness even though it is much more a blessing to us than it could possibly be to them.

For Day 5, we wanted to give Minna and Osmo and their kids an idea of what life looks like in a large Italian family, and we wanted to spread the love to our neighbor who recently had back surgery.  So, we went to my in-laws where Tom and my father-in-law taught the kids how to make fresh, homemade pasta, and we then delivered some to my neighbor.  The kids  ate so much raw flour  were so helpful and really interested in learning the art of cooking authentic Italian cuisine.

The delivery of the pasta was a little anti-climactic because my neighbor played dead when I knocked on the door.  No, I don't mean he just ignored the doorbell... I mean I saw him through the window as I walked up, and when I knocked, he fell asleep.  Over the years we have had such a range of reactions from our acts of kindness.... some people get irate, like we are trying to take something from them, rather than give.  Some people feel guilty and want to reciprocate instantly, and many people simply refuse the kindness.  I have never had anyone just fake sleep through my attempt to be kind however.  It was a refreshing change.

The next day, he did bring over some fresh produce and thanked us though, so fortunately we know he was playing dead, and wasn't, like, actual dead.   

For Day 6, we took the Finns to the Strong Museum of Play, and I treated several kids to free train rides.  This was underwhelming, but received, which was an improvement from the year that parents refused to accept the carousel rides my kids were offering to pay for with their own, hard-earned, precious baby money!  So, all in all Day 5 & 6 was pretty smooth!

I will blog again tonight with today's #AdamsActs, and promise that I will not fall off the wagon for more than a day or so over the weekends.  In the meantime, I thank you all so much for the things you have been doing to serve and love others.  One week ago, the hashtag #AdamsActs didn't even exist.  Now, it is trending.  Just kidding, I don't even know what trending means.  But, now the hashtag does exist, and if you click on it... it is unbelievable to see how many posts and pictures there are.  

It is a good reminder of how God has already equipped us to do His work... we don't need to "be" better or "arrive" to some place in life in order to be used by Him.  We just have to start where we are and do something.  It can be so small, but with the right heart behind it, it can have huge implications.  So keep up the kind work!  

Day 4: The World's Breast Chicken Wings

#AdamsActs are getting wild.  We've got kindnesses happening in Kenya and the Netherlands.  Waitresses in Cambodia are getting thank you notes.  People are giving away absurd tips at restaurants, paying for lunches and coffees, delivering treats to strangers and friends in need.  It's amazing.  To date, I think I'm technically the only one to deliver an eggplant, but still.... I think it's safe to say that this is officially a movement!  An international one, no less!! 

International is actually a pretty good theme for Day 4 since we spent the day in another country (Canada) with actual world travelers.

After fifteen years, I reunited with one of my dearest friends from high school. Minna was an exchange student from Finland and we hit it off almost as soon as we met. It was the first time I really understood that sarcasm is a universal language.  

We have kept in touch, but have not seen each other since the summer after we graduated.  Between us, we now have two husbands, seven children, endless reserves of patience and wisdom, yet neither of us have aged a single bit.  It's remarkable really. 

So for Day 4, we treated our beautiful Finnish friends to all that Upstate New York has to offer.  Basically: overpriced parking, Buffallo wings, and horrifying weather. 

My oldest four at Niagara Falls (Harper, Annalee, Marlie and little London Claire.)

A horrible picture of Jay, just to prove that he was also there. (As the youngest in a large family, I know he will shame me for not including him, so here ya go future Jay... here is a picture of the one time you were eating something besides your own hearing aids.)

My beautiful Minna after all these years and her sweet girl!

At the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY - home of the original Buffalo Chicken Wings.  And before you judge, Harper was not trying to kiss the bosom of a statue, that's just as far as his mouth could reach. 

Okay, now you can judge, because this looks pretty bosom-specific. 

#inappropriateactsofkindness and an internationally good time were had by all. 

Day 3: Baby's First Eggplant

There is absolutely no earthly pain more acute than enduring the loss of your child.  I am not downplaying the significance or grief of other losses, but in my estimation, nothing compares to losing one of your babies. Reading along and sharing these posts, and performing even the smallest kindness in Adam's memory, not only pleases the God that my brother loved and served, but it is an immeasurable kindness to my mother. Knowing that her son's life, while senselessly brief, continues to shine light in a dark world provides a comfort and healing that I haven't seen her experience until we started doing 31 Days of Kindness three years ago.

#AdamsActs are reaching much further than you all could possibly know.  I have received countless private messages from people who have been overwhelmed and inspired by you all, and have found healing, hope and fresh resolve as they face deep and excruciating losses. It is not my place to tell all their stories, but for Day 3, I will tell you one remarkable story of loss and new life.

My friend Kristy is a warrior.  She is the kind of warrior who endured life hardships long before she faced the worst trial of her life, the loss of her beautiful son, Conner.  Today should be his 15th birthday.  Kristy has spent the years since Conner went to heaven bringing awareness to the nightmare of childhood cancer, and all the precious kiddos that are forced to battle for their lives each year. She has used her voice to try to prevent other families from suffering the way she and her husband and daughter have suffered.

Kristy dreamed (privately and out loud to anyone who would listen!) of having another child.  For quite a while it did not seem like it was in the cards for Kristy and Nate, but God sort of stepped in and blew her mind.  She finally had the pregnancy that she had been hoping for, and on top of that, found out that she was having another baby boy.  When I woke up and saw that Kristy went into labor this morning, on Conner's birthday... deciding what to do for Day 3 was an absolute no-brainer.

I put together a gift basket of completely unrelated items.  There were a couple little baby boy sleepers, some apples, pears, freshly-baked blueberry muffins, two squash and an eggplant.  Not your typical "welcome to the world" baby gift... buuuuut... I don't really want to talk about that anymore.  Believe it or not, the contents of said basket were not the weirdest part.  My lovely and kind-to-the-core friend, Shana, offered to deliver the basket for me as her act of kindness for the day.  I knew Kristy was having a home birth and I thought "oh perfect, because it wasn't like I was gonna pop in mid-birth to say 'hi' anyways."

Poor Shana. She pulls up to the house and people were outside on the porch!  She didn't know any of them, and she didn't even know Kristy's name, so she just got out (holding the world's dumbest, most confusing gift basket) and just says "Is someone havin' a baby in there!?"

I mean, who doesn't want to be presented with eggplant by a stranger on the porch while they are giving birth?  So, I will consider this a win.  Because Shana and I make dreams come true.

I know people say stupid religious cliches all the time, but when I say that God orchestrated every detail of this timing, I absolutely believe that to be true. These two boys will most likely be born on the same exact day... and while no child could absolutely never replace Kristy's firstborn baby boy, it is remarkable to know that they will have this gift of new life on the same day that they have longed to celebrate life the most.  The reason I believe this is more than a cliche?  Because God is in the business of bringing life from death.  He knows all about losing your only Son.  He knows about redemption. 

He invented it.

So, for Day 3, I couldn't resist sharing this beautiful story.  This whole month of kindness began because I didn't want to curl into my grief.  Instead of curling in, I wanted to open up and out.  And that kind of vulnerability and stretching reopened some wounds at first... but ultimately it leads to lasting healing.  Sure, the scars are there, and sometimes they look jagged and raw and even a little ugly.  But, if you really see them for what they are, they are God's handwriting, and the message He writes is that we survived, that we exist, that we can heal.  This month means nothing if we don't have to stretch and open up and struggle through the pain in order to survive and exist and heal.  And although we will never stop wanting back what we lost, we will have uncurled ourselves just enough to make room for new life, new gifts, new mercies.  

In loving memory of Conner, the big brother.

Day 2: Janitor's Pet

11,699

That's how many views Adam's story had in 24 hours.

If you missed it, you can go back and view Day 1 here.  But according to that number... it doesn't seem like many of you missed it! I mean... I can't even believe how many people shared the link, and how many have committed to participating this year.  We have people doing #AdamsActs in India, Cambodia and Denmark!
It is amazing to see the outpouring of love and support, but also the enthusiasm and creativity many of you have shown in Days 1 and 2.

I should have had one of you  over-achievers  awesome participants do a guest post for me, since I woke up with some sort of migrainey-heavy-limb-wobbly-stomach thing.  That was awesome.  So for my first act of the day, I  begged  casually asked my husband to stay home from work and do quite literally, everything  some stuff for me.  It was not my proudest moment, but he agreed because he is  also an overachiever  just such a nice guy.  And he brought me soup.

I pulled my act together in time to divide and conquer the evening's activities.  Tom took the girls to ballet while I went to Parent Night at the school.  This was where Day 2 went down.

My kids have terrific teachers and great schools.  Every year we try to do something special for the teachers and the assistants in their classes for Christmas and at the end of the year.  But, I always feel badly for the behind-the-scenes people who work just as hard to make the schools run.  I make sure to develop relationships with the secretaries and the cafeteria attendants and the playground helpers... because they have thankless jobs and let's be honest, they probably get zero Christmas presents, but still I never feel like it's enough.

Adam was the type of kid who went out of his way to make people feel good about themselves.  In the past couple of years, many of Adam's peers came out of the woodwork to share stories about how Adam looked out for others.  One story involved Adam using some complicated wrestling move to restrain a bully who was picking on kids, or stopping in the hallway after a school dance to ask the super shy girl for one slow dance before the night was over.  He made people feel seen, like they mattered.

So, I am in a flu-like zombie haze, with a tall stack of handwritten cards, wandering the hallways filled with parents.  None of the other moms seemed to be sweating and/or nauseous, and definitely nobody was slipping (what appeared to be) love notes into the janitor's closet.  I regretted the red envelopes when the principal walked past me as I was panic-shoving my stack of Valentines into the school nurse's mailbox.  I don't know what came over me, but when I saw the principal approaching I felt like I was in trouble.  (Perhaps this was because my last interaction with her was regarding my 6 year old son, a big fat lie, and a can of pepper spray that just materialized in his backpack, by no fault or foreknowledge of his own).  So, like any normal adult woman, I threw my love letters like confetti and got outta there.

I am just praying that these notes of thanks and encouragement make it into the hands of the employees who feel the most overlooked and under-appreciated. It is only just now occurring to me that the principal probably feels both of those things after the way I behaved... but what can ya do?  Maybe next time I see her, I will ask her to slow dance in the hallway. #AdamsActs

I had to share this one #AdamsActs from a stranger who found my post on Instagram and was inspired by Adam's life.  The artist asked for me to choose a word that described Adam, and I believe the rocks will be left for strangers to find.  I couldn't simply sum him up in a word, because he wasn't about himself... he was about everyone else.  So I cheated and asked for two words. 

The Hardest Story I Never Told: #AdamsActs

Hello Day 1.

If I had to rewrite this story in a fresh way each October, it would be such a Herculean task that it would singlehandedly stop me from committing to this project for the third year in a row.  Still, each year we have new followers, and new participants, who deserve to know the whole story.  So, I will start at the beginning... but it won't be some shiny, "newly revised edition!" 

I just...can't. 

Instead, I will take you back to the first time I had the guts to tell my brother's story so publicly, and I will trust my former self to know what she was doing.  

For this October, I am asking and encouraging whatever participation you can muster. Share the links, do any act of kindness you can, no matter how small.   I truly believe that the things we do this month would be acts of kindness that Adam would have spent a lifetime doing.  To follow along and contribute to our collective journey, please hashtag #AdamsActs in pictures and posts so we can see how far reaching an impact our kindnesses can make. 

Thank you for allowing me the privilege to share my family's story with you. 

----

I am going to tell you a story. 

I haven't done this before, told this story, so detailed and so publicly.  But, I am going to try something big this month, and I think I need to tell this story in order to do it well.  So, here goes nothin...

It was Halloween night many years ago, and my 17 year old brother, Adam H. Provencal, was driving home from the Regional Championship Soccer game.  He was a senior in high school and the captain of the soccer team, and this victory was worth celebrating, and it was news worth spreading for our small Michigan town.

When my brother (and his friend Mike) were driving home and passed some of their friends out playing some harmless Halloween pranks, it was the perfect time to spread the news.  So Adam pulled the car over and was telling his friends about the big victory.  I have no idea what my brother was thinking or feeling in that moment but, my guess, is freedom.  I imagine a boy - crazy about sports, working so hard to maintain his 4.0 GPA in mostly advanced placement classes, editor-in-chief of the nationally recognized school paper, and all-around nice guy - and the pressure that that brings on a kid.  I imagine him in this moment, and the hard work (for now) is done and has paid off with a regional championship.  And he's free.  He is young and free, and he wants to tell to his friends.

So, he pulls over and he and his friends are joking around and talking and hanging out, and they are young and free in this moment.

The whimsical youth of the moment ends when a homeowner comes out and is irate about the pranks and, though my brother had not been involved in them, he had the car and perhaps that made him seem to be the ringleader somehow.  I don't really know if that was why Adam felt the need to go to the door or not, but he did.  He decided he would walk up to the door, to apologize for being there and to offer to clean up the toilet paper in the yard, and he no longer felt young and free.  He was probably terrified that he was going to get in trouble.  So, he dutifully walked up to the man's door and knocked twice. 

The man did not open the door and hear him out, he did not yell at Adam to leave, he did not call the police. When my 17 year old brother knocked on the door that night to have a hard conversation, he had a baby face and scrawny limbs and braces in his mouth.  And when Adam knocked twice on that door, the man gave no warning before he pulled the trigger of his shotgun, sending one, single blast through the front door. 

One bullet.

One bullet changed many lives, some lives even devastated.  But only one life was ended.  My only brother, my parents only son, my hero, my friend... the only person strong enough to jump on a trampoline with me on his shoulders, and the boy who led me to Christ, and taught me to dance like M.C. Hammer, and to be funny enough to joke my way out of trouble.  He was gone. 

His murderer was in and out of jail after two years, for a boy's life taken in a rage over some harmless pranks.

Needless to say, when October rolls around I get stuck.  It is almost like my body involuntarily braces for a trauma.  The crisp fall air, the smell of leaves and bonfires... they are all beautiful reminders of fall, and nightmarish triggers that put my physical and emotional self on high alert, tragedy-ready. 

So, here we are, heading into the 31 days of October, and I am 33 years old... outliving my big brother by 16 years.  I need to do something.  I need to be productive and I need to spend these 31 days focusing outwardly, or I will implode with my seasonal misery and depression.  So, I accepted a challenge, a plan designed to get out of our own heads and focus on other people.  31 days of kindness toward others.

I want to commit myself to honor all the good Adam would have done to the glory of God if his life had not been cut short.  I wanted to be just like him when I grew up.  Well, here is my chance... 33 is pretty grown up, so here goes nothing. 

For Day One I am chaperoning my daughter's field trip, which may not sound like much, but as a mom of five small kids... doing almost anyhin with just one of them requires a lot of planning!  

In addition to that, I am cooking dinner for a friend of ours tonight who has had a rough couple of months.  He watched, first-hand, as his best friend's life ended too soon. I cannot fathom that.  But my brother's friend, Mike, and many others can.  They watched my brother's beautiful life end right before their eyes.  

It just so happens that our friend coming for dinner tonight, is also named Mike. So, Day One is dedicated to the two Mike's. Mike West and Michael VanTubergen, and to all of Adam's friends from Eaton Rapids and Grand Haven who miss him as much as we do. 

Well, almost.