On Kindness & Socks

(source)

Hi Friends,

Yesterday I sent two pairs of fun, colorful, crazy socks to a complete stranger.  I did it in response to this e-mail from my fabulous, adventurous friend, Deanna:

Hey Vicki!
I was wondering if I could ask a huge favor of you, since you are one of the always-up people that I know. I have a good friend back in the States who has had a really tough year, and the tough part isn't even over yet. She is really down, and this month is her 40th birthday, which is leaving her feeling like she's a failure at 40. I was trying to come up with something I could do for her from here, so I had this idea to try and involve the right kind of family & friends I have back in the States. I went on my R&R trip with this friend through France this last summer, and one of the jokes that came out of that was about "pretty socks." One day we were walking through a quaint little French town, and she got distracted by some socks at one of the stores. I still haven't let her live it down. I'm trying to recruit people to each send her a pair of loud or colorful or wild or crazy or just pretty socks. I don't think that at this point that she thinks anybody cares, and I'm hoping I can show her that a whole bunch of people care just knowing her through me.  Hopefully I'll even get a smile or a laugh out of her over the collection of socks that she ends up with. Let me know if you can help me out. I can pay you back in Belgian chocolate when I get back to Europe. And you are still absolutely invited to come bicycling with me this summer - you could be on Champs Elysees to see the Tour de France!
Deanna


I've written about my friend, Deanna, before.  Deanna is the one who left her safe, comfortable job at Kimberly-Clark (where John works), packed up her life and headed back to school to become a vet, and is now serving in Afghanistan.  Her life is pretty unbelievable.  She's definitely one of my heroes.  I would do just about anything for her, especially if it involved sending fun socks to a complete stranger.

I just loved the spirit behind this request, don't you?

Kindness is the best.

I hope her friend ends up with dozens of new, colorful, crazy socks.

I hope they remind her how blessed she is to have Deanna as a friend.

XO,

Vicki