I donated my child’s clothes to a stranger, and a year later an unexpected package showed up at my door.
While clearing out my daughter’s closet, I found a box of her old toddler clothes and offered them online for free. A woman replied, saying she couldn’t pick them up and was struggling, so I mailed the clothes along with a short note.
Almost a year later, a small package arrived. Inside were tiny shoes and a handwritten letter. She explained that when she contacted me, she had just escaped a dangerous situation with her daughter and had almost nothing. The clothes I’d sent kept her little girl warm during their hardest months. The yellow sweater became her daughter’s favorite—she even wore it on her first day of preschool in their new, safe town.
The shoes she returned were the pair her daughter wore throughout their first year rebuilding their lives. She wanted me to have them as a reminder of what that small act of kindness meant. She ended her letter with, “Kindness travels.”
Holding those shoes, I realized how little we know about the struggles others face—and how even the smallest kindness can help someone begin again.
