Random Acts of Kindness Day caught my fancy because it reminded me of my mother. During the years I was undergoing steroid eye injections, my mother would often take me to the hospital and then care for me afterward until I could see well enough to be on my own again. That way Tim could stay home and keep the farm and business going while I was incapacitated.

Maybe it was because I was quasi-traumatized by having a needle in the eye, and maybe it was just that all my other senses were heightened by my temporary blindness, but in a sea of mushy memory, those times stand out in clear relief. Especially the repeated acts of kindness I witnessed as I followed my mother throughout her days. Acts like letting a fellow grocery shopper go ahead in line, mailing cards to relatives I never knew I had, complimenting a stranger’s hairstyle, taking a moment to listen to a super-chatty clerk, or covertly buying breakfast for a young family driving from Minnesota to Alabama to celebrate Christmas with a new baby.

Wikipedia has a page about Random Acts of Kindness Day, which at its root is a day dedicated to celebrating kindness. It’s interesting to read through the suggested kindness acts listed there, because you can tell the list was probably posted before the COVID pandemic. That takes me back to March of last year, when the unimaginable happened, and state by state, venue by venue, event by event the country shut down, and real-life human interaction evaporated.

Or at least, that’s what it felt like to my poor little extraverted heart. Last spring was a dark, dark time with lots of weepy phone calls to my ever-kind mother. Except . . . except for bright little moments that burst forth with light and gave me hope for human perseverance. In one, I remember speaking with a customer who was hoping to get gift bags along with her Pickle Creek order. The entire order, she explained, was gifts for people she missed seeing. Of course I added the bags. And then other customers who were placing online orders started saying the same thing: They were sending gifts to people just because they were thinking of them.

I saw that random acts of kindness were alive and well despite the seeming end of the world. Especially because of the end of the world. I started wondering how I might contribute to this gesture, even in a small way, and I thought of my mother, of her handwritten note habit. I knew immediately I should make it possible for customers to add handwritten notes when sending their “just because I was thinking of you” gifts. Thus the Pickle Creek Thinking of You Gifts were born.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about potential random acts of kindness. I’ve got my own personal idea list going. Maybe you do too. And maybe your list involves a little gift just to say, “I’m thinking of you.” If it does, and if you’re thinking of sending a gift from Pickle Creek, be sure to check out our customer-inspired Thinking of You page. We still handwrite every note on every card!