Loads of Love

Featured image courtesy of Steve Burke Photography.

This week’s post is submitted from Candy in California and is simply a photo of a letter, posted below.

Candy is an airline pilot, adventure seeker, bungee jumper, hip hop dance dabbler, and former Air Force officer. While in the military, she flew one of the big heavy military cargo aircraft, which means a lot of things… a non-glamorous aspect of which includes washing and folding her laundry in a lot of different places around the world.

In one instance, Candy was away from home and doing a few loads of laundry at the military on-base laundromat. She finished with a wash load, only to find every dryer unavailable. One dryer had completed its cycle, a pile of warm clothes resting at the bottom.

As she has always done, Candy removed and folded the clothes for their owner, leaving the neat stack near the dryer for them to retrieve. She then threw another load in the washer and went about her business.

Upon her return, Candy was greeted with a handwritten note, which is the photo below and is the heart of this week’s post.

There’s so much more to this story that I could tell you. That she learned kindness from her parents, who posted the golden rule prominently on the family refrigerator when she was little so she could see it every day. That her parents spent 45 years lovingly taking care of her older sister Stephanie at home after complications with Moya Moya disease rendered her unable to talk or walk again. That her sweet sister passed away just eight months ago. That her parents walked the walk, holding that torch in quietbadassery, which in turn inspired her to do the same. That Candy’s own motto, right next to that golden rule, is “Don’t let other people’s ugly destroy your beautiful.” 

I’ve spoken to several people about this one. And hey, who knows if this would have gone another way…if a person was angry that someone took their clothes out of the dryer, or whatever. Candy just did what she’s always done, and she didn’t want someone to be greeted by a lump of wrinkled clothes when they returned. To me, it’s worth taking the chance to be kind. And sometimes, that kind gesture is a pinhole of light that another person needs. It may be the only light in their day. Perhaps, if all those little pinholes get woven together, they look a lot like light. Like hope.

Keep on folding, Candy. Keep on doing you.