Whenever I feel the stress of life getting to me, I hop over to YouTube and search “random acts of kindness” or “heartwarming acts.”
Some of the results? The police officer who bought a poor kid a video-gaming console and comes back to play with him every week. Or the group of people who worked together to push a train away from the platform to free a stranger who accidentally stepped in the wrong place. The funny thing is that it only takes a few minutes, or even seconds, for an act of kindness to change someone’s whole day.
Young Kaden isn’t old enough to know the significance of what happened to him, but his mother knows what an anonymous older boy did for her son, who has spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).
This rare genetic disease has left Kaden in a wheelchair since he was just a few months old. The muscles in his back and legs will never properly develop. Children are frequently diagnosed with SMA when they fall behind on the developmental curve for rolling over and sitting up.
Kaden may one day, through hard work, be able to sit up. But this will likely be an arduous task. However, his mother, Katy, sees that he has a keen mind that is thirsty for knowledge, which she tries to accommodate.
She recently took Kaden to a science museum with interactive exhibits. Kaden was soon fascinated by a colorful display showing the way that potential energy is converted into kinetic energy with balls on rails. Unfortunately, he could not pick up the ball that was on the floor because of his limited mobility. An older boy helped Kaden retrieve the ball. When Kaden struggled to turn the exhibit’s release for the balls to be set it motion, the anonymous boy aided his new friend once again.
No stares lingered. No questions were asked. Nothing needed to be shared besides the same sense of wonder at seeing science in action.
Katy witnessed the whole scene in admiring amazement. She did have the presence of mind to take a picture with her cell phone though. She later uploaded the picture to Facebook with a short note of praise for the mystery boy and the exceptional job his parents were doing raising him.
